 |
Jamaican Caving Notes |
 |
|
|
| MAY 12, 2003 VAUGHANSFIELD CAVE Position: WGS84 - 18 19' 36.9" N, 77 48' 15.0" W, Alt 440 m Field notes: R. S. STEWART Cavers: R. S. Stewart, M. Taylor, Clive After we'd left Dead Baby Sinkhole, we headed for Vaughansfield, a district near Maroon Town, to find the cave of the same name. This cave is listed in JU but is described as being not fully explored. On Clive's recommendation, we took the long way, circling around through Tangle River in order to avoid bad roads. By doing so, we passed two outstanding examples of Tower Karst located near the village of Tangle River. There are local names for both, unfortunately neither of which I recorded. These two towers, the taller of which is about 120 m, would intrigue any rock-climber who might come across them, but today we were caving and although they have been noted for the future, this day we carried on past. We had grid coordinates from JU, recorded by the Bristol Caving Club in 1967, so were able to easily find the right area where the cave is located, but the description, "A small stream sinks below a cliff", turned out to be misleading enough that at first our search was fruitless. After a period of wandering the reported area, with the knowledge that the grid position had an accuracy of 100 m at best, and finding no small cliff beneath which a stream could sink, we finally came across a farmer walking down the rural lane that we drove along. He turned out to be quite friendly, and helpful, and although the description of, "sinks below a cliff", did not bring anything familiar into his mind, he led us to a small river cave that he knew of. At first, what we saw appeared to be a small bushed up sink that would not offer any low passage as stated in JU, but some strenuous work with a machete, by Clive, soon revealed an entrance. As the weeds and shrubs came away from the hole, we began to hear the sound of flowing water. The drop into the entrance, although not deep, is such that we decided to tie a rope onto a near-by tree to get down. This being done, I went on in. Before I continue with the entry into the cave, I would like to describe the entrance as it appeared once Clive had removed most of the brush from around it. To the west of the lane, at the top of a seasonal stream-course, is a slope that rises to the west. About 80 m up the stream-course, from the lane, there is found an apparent sink that has to the upward side a collapse of sand/mud material that forms a vertical of about 5 m. The dirt that has collapsed into the sink has subsequently been washed away by the seasonal stream. The sink itself is in fact a rising. This "sink" is about 5 m across, and about 3 m deep, and has at the bottom an entrance to a passage that is NW - SE. The passage that I found at the bottom is indeed low and at that time it was half full of water flowing to the SE. It was impossible to follow the passage upstream, or downstream, because of the water, but it was apparent that during times of high rainfall this stream rises to overflow and run down the seasonal stream-course to cross the lane where we'd left the car parked. The reason that this cave is only partially explored is because much of this passage is a crawl and is only possible during very dry periods. Clive and Malibu joined me, we had a look and saw the impossibility of continuing, so we exited. The position was accurately GPS marked, a good 3D-Diff fix being taken with many satellites available and the WAAS geo-synch in good view. I must admit to not being 100% on this being the listed Vaughansfield Cave. The description, "sinks below a small cliff", is similar but wrong. The passage is described as going south. The stream was definitely flowing SE down a very small passage but the easier route seemed to be upstream. Because of the water levels, there is a chance that the NW, upstream, route chokes after a short distance and that the downstream direction offers the greater distance. We will be in this area again during the dry season, will re-visit the cave, and look in the area for any other caves that better match the JU description. It should be noted that the GPS position of this cave is within 150 m of the listed cave, and this is well within the tolerance of the grid coordinate accuracy of most of the systems listed in JU. [Notes for a second visit on March 28, 2005, when the cave was definitely determined to be Vaughansfield, can be found here. |
| Jamaican Cave Notes - Main Page | May 2003 Caving Notes - Main Page |