 |
Jamaican Caving Notes |
 |
|
|
|
Cave River System - Top Hole |
We were beginning our intended inventory of all the caves in St. Ann with one of the more spectacular natural systems, the Cave River system. This impressive system is a chain of river caves carved from the river flowing underground, but which surfaces at intervals and runs overland.Our plan was to start at the first sink in Aenon town, and follow the system through to the end. We had already visited the last accessible point to the river at the bottom of the extremely deep Volcano Hole back in February 2007. This is the point where the river sinks back underground and eventually surfaces at Dornoch River Head, in Stewart town, Trelawny on the north side of the Cockpit Country. An outstanding example of how our hydrological network extends island wide and actions in Clarendon can have adverse results on water on the north side of the island. This spectacular Dornoch is the headwaters for the Rio Bueno. This river rising is one of the largest and most impressive in Jamaica, and unbelievably, could be under threat from bauxite mining!! Aenon town is actually in the very north of Clarendon on the main road from Cave Valley to Spaldings. We'd never stayed in the area, so a couple days prior to our start; Stef made a reconnaissance journey over there and did a superb job locating a base for us. A very hospitable Lisa offered us shelter in a 20’ container she'd recently had renovated into a very impressive shop. Our standard offering for night's lodging was accepted and we were set. Now the superb job came from the fact that the enterprising Lisa also had bar, carwash, and 'back-of-house' area with hydro-facilities (plenty clean water and toilets). We now had all the needs covered. We pulled into Aenon Town just before dark on Sunday May 6th. It had rained a little that day, and the trailer had leaked a bit. Lisa inspected it quickly, and then right away pointed over to a small house on the property. It belonged to her cousin and had two rooms, one was occupied, the other ours. Within 10 minutes, Lisa had one guy off down the road on a bicycle, and another pulling a massive roll of electrical wire out of the trailer. By the time a couple guys rolled off about 80ft of wire, the bicycle guy returned with a receptacle and a fluorescent bulb. They ran current to the house for us to have a plug and a light. We did our usual nightly sipping in the bar, and were in bed somewhat early. Next morning Lisa boiled water for us, and we had our coffee on the entrance step to the bar on the roadside. Dozens of primary school kids passed by, curious eye's open wide at the sight of these two strangers drinking coffee and browsing through maps and books. 99% of the kids greeted us first with a loud "Good Morning", that and every morning for the next four days. We drove to Cave Valley to find food, and had boiled yam, green banana, and steamed cabbage/carrots which were way too peppery hot for Stef! Back to Aenon town, a less than 10 minute drive and we were gearing up to head out. Lisa had sent for a local Rastaman/farmer who had grown up in the area, to guide us to the first sink. He was waiting for us when we got back, cutlass sharpened and very friendly. 
Off we were on foot down the main road. About five minutes later, we turned off onto a dirt road passing a row of houses and people with more curious stares. A little further, the road turned into a foot trail leading into the bush. We hooked left and soon hit the river. Rastaman knew exactly where we wanted to go after Stef described the system to him, and where we wanted to start. The river was shallow and still. We went around a few bends and came upon the first sink. It was a massive debris pile of dead bamboo and trash. Huge pieces of foam (looked like construction debris) were mixed in with the bamboo.We stopped and Stef took a waypoint, I amused myself looking at the huge spiders that had spun massive webs across the branches of dead trees on the river bank. Rastaman looked at us both a little curious still, he still had no idea who we were or what we were doing. We backtracked to follow another river bed that was now dry, I think it was the overflow for the stream we were in first. At that sink, there was again an even more massive pile of bamboo debris that had choked the entrance. So then we asked Rastaman if he knew the locations of the various 'holes' or entrances to the cave sections of the river. Now Stef was using the official names of the holes, as they'd been explored and mapped before, but I felt the Rastaman didn't know them by these names. We backtracked a little and then started up another foot trail. Stef had created vector maps for our Garmin GPS units of the entire area, and the trail did show up on the map as a secondary road. It was farming area, a few, not many, different crops all done of a very small scale. Most noticeably to me was the Lettuce, tons of it. Everyone around the area seemed to have lettuce growing. Yams, cane, and banana. Big coffee patches that look well tended. Along the way we stopped and spoke with an old farmer. He told us - the first of many people in the area - about the severe flooding in the area. During Ivan, the entire area we were in was completely under water, deep water that wiped out all animals and crops. Everybody had to start from scratch again afterwards. I asked Rastaman if the sinks were ever cleared of the blockages. He said that 'years ago' it would be done regularly with folks from the town, and they'd clear all the holes and burn the bamboo, but that stopped years ago. We continued on the trail, not very sure where we were in the system. The trail was easy though, and after about 20 minutes walk, we heard loud rushing water. We followed the noise off the trail slightly and came to the top of about a 40ft sink hole with the river running at the bottom coming out of one cave entrance, running across the bottom of the sink pit, and into another cave entrance to disappear into the dark. Bingo. We looked around the pit rim hoping to find a way down, but it was a straight vertical drop all around. There were several trees around the rim, so we anchored our rope to one close to the edge, and I volunteered to go down first. We couldn't see the river or bottom from our location, and didn't know exactly what lay at the bottom of the pit. The river noise was very loud, and it sounded as if it may be tough. It was an easy rappel. At the bottom I had to maneuver a little to get over about 10 ft so I could land on a big boulder instead of into the river. I scrambled over some huge boulders across the river and onto a good high spot on the other side where I could get some good video of Stef descending into the pit. Stef came down, and we sat a few minutes checking the map, deciding to head down-stream first. It was a chilly, loud river disappearing into a dark narrow cave. The water was about knee-deep to start, but got deeper after only a dozen meters or so. A few more steps and it was beyond standing, we had to tread water and swim. We did bring flotation devices with us, lifejackets and inflatable backpacks; our experience in river caves has taught us its suicide to push river caves without them. Now the past few days, Stef kept reiterating the point that we were pushing river caves, it was the rainy season, and there was a great risk of flooding. Several of the caves scheduled were already known to be dangerous flood risks during rain, so that was at the forefront of our minds. 
We began floating downstream at about 12:15pm, the current was quite slow and manageable, and we could tread water and be carried along in deeper and narrower sections, and then walk again in wider parts. The passage narrowed quite a bit at one point, where we hit a wall formed from columns cutting the stream right down the middle. We went on the left side. We got to a low section where we had to crawl on hands and knees, but it was fairly easy going.Before long, the passage widened up and we got on the sand bank to rest and consult the map. There was a small crawl passage off to one side that went about 30-40ft then choked. We hit the terminal sump soon after that and turned around. At the wide passage section we poked around looking for animal life. There were small fish in the water, a few bats did buzz us as we were swimming, but I can't remember now if there was any other life. We made our way back down the narrow passage and deep water, it felt colder now that we'd been in the water for about 40 minutes, and the sunlit entrance was a welcome sight. Once outside we rested and warmed up on some large boulders in the Sun, while Stef made some notes and consulted the map again. We then shouted up to Rastaman not to wait on us because we didn't know how long we'd be, and invited him to come have a drink with us later. We then took off upstream into the other cave, leaving behind Stefs machete at the top of the sinkhole, and our rope also fastened at the top. Again, the next section started off shallow and easy, and then turned narrow and deep. It got really beautiful after that. The rock formations were stunning, beautifully scalloped in many places on the roof. At one long narrow passage with a low roof, the stalactites hung down at a perfect height that I could push myself along hand over hand using them for quite a stretch. There were a handful of bats zooming by us in both directions. Now the scenery was stunning, but sadly, was poisoned the entire way by something that would be with us the entire system all week. Garbage. Tons of endless garbage. It was at the bottom of the sink pit, caught all along the rocks in the passages and on the sand banks. It hung along the walls and roof throughout the entire system. Plastic soda bottles, clothing, motor oil bottles, motor vehicle tires, shoes. They hang eerily at the very top of the highest chambers and all along the roof and walls, deposited there by high water when the cave floods. We continued along for what seemed like about 40 minutes, walking in spots where it widened, and kicking along carefully where it was deep. We soon learned that the worse sections were waist deep water where we would regularly hit our knees and shins on submerged rocks. 
Finally we saw light ahead. There was an exit, with banana trees growing right up to the edge. We were very grateful for that, it was cold, and we'd been swimming for quite a while. It was a fair challenge to climb up and out, the last section being a slippery, muddy, steep slope. Outside we sat for a smoke break, and Stef pulled out the gps for a reading.I was taking photos when up walked a farmer. It was his land, but he didn't make it out to this section very often. He spoke about the flooding too, and then impressed me with his knowledge of the caves and entrances and their names. He'd been around there decades before when the previous explorers had been in the area, and had learned from them. He lived in Norwood. We chatted a little, then, much to his horror, we started back to the cave to continue exploring. He was quick with his warning about the flood risk during rain, and that the sky was getting overcast and it was rainy season! 
We didn't need to be reminded, but we were grateful for his concern. So we decided to push for another stretch, but not too long. Contrary to the farmers’ statement that the river continued for a long way, we hit the terminal sump after about 20minutes I think. We turned around and began our retreat. By the time we got back to the entrance where we met the farmer, both Stef and I were weary, having spent several hours in the chilly water, with much difficult climbing of waterfalls and scrambles around boulders and sharp rock.We decided to exit here. It was about 3:20pm and Stef pulled out the gps to navigate us back to our starting point at the pit we had entered that morning. Now it was only about a Kilometer I believe, but it was on the other side of a range of big heavily forested hills. Very thick bush, and the cutlass was back at the descent pit with the rope. We did work our way around a couple of the hills looking for trails or low density bush that we might push our way through slowly, but it was too thick, steep and formidable. So back to the entrance we went, and then trekked around the field till Stef picked up a path presumably used by the farmer. We started off, following the well worn path, and keeping watch on the gps. Stef then soon remarked that we were close to and heading towards Norwood. Wow! We'd been in Norwood in Feb, and I remember the drive down to Cave Valley from there to be quite a journey, plus the drive from Cave Valley to Aenon town. It seemed to me that we now had several hours of walking ahead before we even reached the main road where we could grab a taxi. Anyway we soon got to the end of the Norwood road, where we'd parked on our previous visits to the area, and knew right away exactly where we were. As we headed down the main road in the district passing the residents, the familiar faces and cries of 'De Cavers Dem!' greeted us. We'd had quite an exciting several days here in Feb. 2007, with a lot of great assistance from some of the local guys, and they were all happy to see us again. We walked to the first 'square' and Stef asked if I wanted a cold beer. Naturally, we stopped. Soon we were relaxing on the bar patio in our wet clothes and several pounds of climbing gear, excited and tired, discussing the days adventure. More familiar faces turned up, before long we had about a dozen people there listening to us recall the days events. Eventually a guy Stef was talking to turned out to be quite an environmentalist and was a member of NJCA, a top rate environmental NGO in Runaway Bay, Jamaica. He was happy to meet us, as he'd been on the internet recently and googled his district Norwood, where he was pleasantly surprised to see the JCO website come up first referring to our visit there to Volcano Hole on a few previous visits. We chatted a little, and then, fortunately, he led us off the main road through the hills and farmlands on a shortcut back to the main road just a few minutes walk from Aenon town. A hell of a break for us. We got home right around dark, and continued sipping some RS's at Lisa's bar. After a few hours, we began our first night of what has now become a ritual JCO activity on expeditions. At nights when we are planted in the local bar/cook shop we download the day’s photos and videos and show them to all who are around and interested. We talk about caves and their role and importance. Always, people are fascinated and interested, and before long I counted over 37 guys and girls crowded into Lisa's bar, sitting on the billiard table, and even outside the bar looking in through the windows. Plenty of questions were asked, and we ended up talking about animal life in caves, flooding, farming practices, trash, all the issues related to importance of proper environmental planning and practices to alleviate life threatening flooding and contamination of water resources. Everybody was keen, and listened spellbound as we shared our information. After about a two hour session of discussion and education, Stef then addressed the happy audience telling them that we're always looking for local residents who'd be interested in joining us and seeing and experiencing a bit of something special in their district. He did stress that it is inherently a dangerous activity and "if you plan on dying in your bed at an old age, don't come out with us." This was followed by dead silence. Nobody was interested. There were no takers. I then noticed Rastaman, our guide that morning, dressed up quite nicely and relaxing with a beer. Jokingly, I shouted across the crowded bar to Stef that Rastaman said he’d like to go caving. Stef, thinking I was serious, then shouted to Rasta “Really man, you’d like to come out with us?” Very calmly and showing no emotion Rastaman softly and replied in a serious tone “Stef, I want to die in my bed”! The crowd roared with laughter. The long tough day had worn us. We drove out to Cave Valley to find food. We discovered a restaurant - in the Texaco gas station in the center of town - and that would be our food stop for the rest of the week. A recommended stop if you're in Cave Valley for food. A good meal, then back to Aenon town, wash up and hit the floor for some rest a bit after 11pm. We'd been given a key to the room, but we couldn't get it to work, and finally climbed in through an unlocked window and unlocked the back door from inside. We were exhausted. Our first day was a success. |
| Jamaican Cave Notes - Main Page | May 2007 Caving Notes - Main Page |