Jamaica Cave Exploration 2009
by Phillip Lehman
All photos Jan Paul Pauel

Divers: Paul Rogic, Thomas Riffaud, Phillip Lehman

Before I begin this trip report we would all like to thank the JCO (Jamaica Caves Organization) for helping us out, without these guys it would have been very difficult or impossible to gain access to most if not all of the sites we dove.

A special thanks to Jan Paul Pauel who took the time to come and meet us and help us out, it was great to meet you and we all look forward to meeting the other members on our next trip.
We were very happy to have the opportunity to collaborate with the JCO and to contribute information for research, education and to help preserve the caves in Jamaica.
We will continue to collaborate with the JCO and I am confidant that on future explorations we will find many underwater passages, caves and springs.

11/11/09
Sangster airport
We meet Paul, a DR dive buddy who now lives in Jamaica, Paul was part of our DR cave explorations before moving to Jamaica. He brings his friend Pablo, a really cool Kingston local who will be coming with along with us, as you may or may not know they drive on the wrong side of the road in Jamaica and there is no way I will drive on the left, Pablo agrees to help us with that. We rent a big van stash all our gear in and head to Negril to get tanks and stuff.

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11/13/09
Blue Hole, Blue Hole 2, God's Well, Blue Hole Garden, Roaring River Cave Spring
We leave Negril at about 9am and headed to a place called “The Blue Hole”, this is about 2kms north of Little Bay, the area is typical karst hills with many caves and various small sinks, it looks similar to Bayahibe in the DR a good sign I assume.
The actual Blue Hole in question is very cool looking, it is about 15mtrs in diameter and goes down about 10mtrs to the water, the flooded part is 8mtrs deep and has various horizontal fissures, but all are too narrow to pass, even in no mount. No horizontal cave was found, but the area definitely area has good potential.
We met a local at the Blue Hole who shows us an unnamed breakdown sink, we will call it Blue Hole 2, it is a bit lower down the hill than the Blue Hole so the water level is only about 3 meters down, we climb down an improvised wood ladder and find a room about 15mtrs wide and 6 meters deep, it looks very unstable, my knee hurts so Thomas jumps in to check it out, but unfortunately it does not have any ongoing passage, it is boulder choked at all ends, I notice a few areas with flow stone on the ceiling suggesting this cave is more stable than it looks.

We then go to cave called “God’s Well” this is about 2 kms up the road, and then a 15 minute walk in the hills to get there. The cave is quite big and access is through an arch, the flooded part is to the left down a small side tunnel, the locals told us that a guy dove this cave 15 years ago and collected samples of cave critters in small glass and plastic vials, I believe them as they depicted the diver’s gear as being sidemount with two tanks etc.. I do not think they would have seen a cave diver before and would not be making this up, I suspect the diver in question might be Dr Tom Illife, I have been on collection expeditions with him in the DR and he travels the world looking for new water cave species, I make a mental note to call him and ask.
It is by now getting late and we decide to head back and leave this one for next time.

The entire area has a lot of potential for more discovery, it is very similar to the El Choco National park in Cabarete and we have found a few large flooded and ultra decorated systems there, so I am sure that we will find nice systems in the area on future trips.

11/13/09
Roaring River Cave, Blue Hole Garden, Rick's Spring
We drive up to a place called Blue Hole Garden, it's a nice circular "sink" it's tinted opaque turquoise blue, standing on the edge I think that there is a very low chance of any going cave, the edges were all mud and clay, we opt to save air for other sites in the area with that seems to have much more potential.

We go down to Roaring River cave and there is a true spring just about 40 meters up the road from the main entrance to the cave to the right side of the road. It has a very distinct and very strong boil on the surface the water is very clear and you can see a solution tube main shaft surrounded by really cool looking underwater plants and vines. It has been raining hard for a few days and the locals tell us that usually the boil is not as big.

I opt to stay out on this one, I dislocated my knee a month prior to this trip in a cave collapse and as the flow coming out of this spring is really strong there is no way i can swim against that.
Thomas and Paul think they can get in even with that amount of flow, yeah right. By now a large a crowd has assembled to see the crazy white boys drown, I start making bets with people "live or die?" ,
Thomas and Paul kit up and jump in, at first it looked like they cannot not get in, I am laughing hysterically, they keep getting shot out, it looks pointless, they keep trying and after a few failed attempts they make it in.
This is Paul and Thomas' account of what it was like.
After swimming/pulling really hard to get in and fighting off aquatic plants all the way down we got to the bottom at about 14 meters.
At the bottom there are two vertical fissures in the ground each going further down to unknown depths but going in opposite directions, the rock is dark and appears to be kind of solid, the flow coming out of the fissures is intense, Thomas pauses for a moment to check the tie off, and then we hear a loud rumble, one side of the sink was coming down in a debris slide, not cool, at the same moment the flow gets much stronger and it it makes further progress impossible, we call the dive.
The locals tell us that during the dry season flow is down to a minimum, we will be back next time.

11/14/09
Shark Hole & Marine Lab Blue Hole
We plan on leaving Negril early, but get end up leaving around noon.
We get to Discovery Bay and cannot resist taking a peek at “Shark Hole”, before checking into the hotel. This is a classic large circular sink hole, really weird looking, the top layer is crystal clear water and about 2 meters deep there is a mysterious fluorescent green opaque layer, to date I have never seen anything quite like this.

As we are checking this out, a guy comes up to me and says we can't dive here as he had put a shark in there a few years ago and now it was really big and he feeds it every day and also that the sink hole is a bottomless pit.
I am hoping that somehow the shark actually survived in this sink hole and how cool it would be to not only maybe discover a new cave but as an aded bonus there would be a big shark swimming around in the entrance sink.
We were psyched to see the sink so we go and check in at the hotel as fast as possible and we meet up with Jan from the JCO, and then speed back to Shark Hole.
We start setting up our gear at the edge of the sink and people start gathering around us and again warn us about the dangerous shark swimming in there.
We climb down the edge and I step in slowly, I cannot see through the opaque green layer and I don't want to hit a rock or a shark.The water is surprisingly warm and salty.
Tying of the reel off we go, it is really spooky looking, below the clear water the layer is an eerie cloud of greenish fluorescent mist that is totally opaque, it looks exactly like the green radioactive mist used in sci-fi and horror movies.

We swim out to the middle of the sink and start to go down, I notice the water is very warm, I get to the mist and pause for a second, then I go through.

I am now in the green layer and can barely see my gauges and suddenly it gets really hot and the color goes from radioactive green to purple, I keep going down and then it goes 100% dark I cannot even see my light beam, and it is really hot!, I am thinking that if I do not pass this layer in the next minute or so I will turn, it is that uncomfortably hot.

I have no idea were Thomas or Paul are, I just know I have the line so I know were up is, it's kind of scary, totally dark, and extremely hot, if this was your shower you would turn it down immediately, even in the winter. Up to this point I have been sinking down trying to get used to this, but the heat is so uncomfortable that instead of sinking down slowly I start swimming down hard anticipating I will pop out under this layer at any moment, instead I end swimming head first into the bottom, my head sinks a foot or so into a weird super hot and very slimy mud, I can feel tree branches and "stuff" everywhere and I figure now is a good time to go up.

We all "meet" on the lineup just above the bottom, and we all do a bit of blind "feel" diving to see if there are any rock passages or deeper sections but it is all organic matter with branches and stuff, after a little while we go up and meet on the surface, going back up is really strange too, after the total darkness as soon as bit of light comes through everything is bright purple and suddenly it goes radioactive green and then crystal clear, man that was weird and spooky!

We decide to make a dive around the edges of the sink to see if there are any horizontal passages we dive the entire circumference but do not find any direct connection to the ocean or any caves, however there are a lot of fish in the clear layer, and even some angel fish the locals put in the sink, how they survived in such a harsh environment is puzzling.
Even though we did not find any cave, it was a really cool dive, actually the one of the spookiest dives I have done and worth every moment. Even though the sink is near a small town it was surprisingly clean, there was very little trash and lots of fish, and unfortunately, no shark!

Dive time: 132mins
Max depth: 10 meters
Fun factor: 7
Spook factor: 11 (out of a possible 10)

It was getting a bit late but figured we had enough time to check out the Blue Hole in front of the marine lab, so we hired a boat and went out. The viz was terrible 2-3 feet at best we did a dive to the bottom at about 40 feet. The bottom is all silt with many weird jelly fish all swimming relentlessly into the ground. After 20 minutes we decided to go up and check out the limestone cliffs to the E of the Marine Lab.
We find a few small caves with freshwater flow and one possible ongoing passage, since we only had single tanks we did not push it far, it is a vertical fissure about 4 foot wide and 6 meters deep, it seems to continue and get bigger. Thomas pushed it for about 50-60 meters and it appears to keep going, he said he saw the passage continue, we need to come back.
It was getting dark, and we float around a bit and talk about the dives today, we all agree it was super fun and the area has good potential.

11/15/09
Sinkhole at the Jerk Center and Sink 1, 2 & 3

We met up with Jan Paul at the Jerk Center which is directly across the street from Green Grotto, from the satellite images I saw I was pretty sure we would find a Cenote type sink and surely enough it was a classic one. Beautiful clear water with large fish swimming around, lots of aquatic plants, a really beautiful example of a pristine environment.

Since access was bit of a hassle Thomas took just one tank to do a recon dive an see if there was any ongoing flooded cave passages, unfortunately there were none but Thomas did notice a boulder choke behind which he could see an ongoing passage but it was too tight to get through. We go and to check out two large sinks by the ocean, I will call them Sink 1 and Sink 2 for reference. It is a hike over very sharp karst terrain, identical to the Pedernales region on the DR, minus the gnarly cactuses and centipedes so it was a bit easier going...a bit.

Sink 1 is about 15 meters across and has an irregular triangular shape and did not have ongoing cave however at the east end there is a small crevice, but Thomas and Paul both forgot the light!, I officially hate both of them. Thomas can see light at the other end of the passage and makes the swim to Sink 2.
Thomas connects to another small sink past Sink 2 and comes back. He cannot tell what was below as he had no light, but thinks there might be some passages, I hate him even more.
We walk back to the car and say goodbye to Jan, since Thomas and Paul forgot the light they go back to check it out. Paul goes in with a light this time unfortunately there is no passable cave.
Paul connects even further to Sink 4, and sees a big clearing in the bush that he describes as "King Kong hit his fist on the ground and makes a big clearing in the rock" Paul is sure this is natural and also sees what may be a cave below a ledge off in the distance.
We will go back and check this area further next time there are many more sinks to check but we just don't have the time this trip.
The terrain in this area is identical to Pedernales, which has numerous large flooded cave systems, some highly decorated, so I am convinced that we will find some flooded systems here too.

11/16/09
Pear Tree Bottom ocean dive

We decide to check out the limestone cliff area that comes down to the ocean on the west side of the Pear Tree river. We get a boat and a local diver who knows of some big cave entrances with freshwater coming out agrees to show us, cool!. We get to the site in question, I let the local diver know not to follow us in no mater what, he let's me know there is no way in hell he would go in, we all jump in and swim toward the cliffs and right into a large cave opening, there is a lot freshwater coming out of the cave and every crevice in the cliffs and even 80 meters out from the cliffs there is a freshwater layer about 12 inches thick in the ocean.
The cave opening is about 7-8 meters wide and about 2 meters high, it looks so cool, there are fish everywhere so many in fact we need to get schools of fish out of the way to see if there is an opening,
in addition there are shrimp everywhere and they all have little red glowing eyes.
There is cold freshwater flowing out of the cave creating a very pronounced halocline and visibility at times is down to a blurry zero.
Once 20-30 meters in it is a 100% freshwater cave, the walls are stained dark brown to black from tannic acid and the water is very cold at 22 celsius. There is a definite positive flow and we have to swim against a slight but very noticeable freshwater current coming out of the cave.
It is one of the coolest looking entrances I have seen, between the sea life at the start and the contrast between the dark rock and green tinted freshwater what a cave!
We push on for about 100 meters at which point the tunnel ends in a boulder choke, I can see beyond this that the tunnel continues, but it's too tight even for no mount.
I cut the line and tie it to a solid rock and we head out.
We back track a bit and find a tight but passable bedding plane to the right of the main tunnel but this gets too tight and chokes out after a while but again you can see the tunnel continue on ahead so although we could not get in I am confidant this is a continuing cave system.
Once the entrance comes into view the glowing light of the exit and the large schools of fish make an incredible discovery channel quality moment, we were all super happy and have huge grins on our face. The diver who showed us the place is waiting near the entrance and looks really cold, he does not have a wetsuit, I did not know he would wait for us and I signal for him to go back up to the boat.
We check a few other cave entrances, and they too choke out, but I am convinced we will find an ongoing passage into what I believe is a nice system beyond, we have only a day left and more stuff on the menu so it will have to wait for our next trip. We surface and get back on the boat, I apologize to the diver and explain to him I had no idea he would actually wait the whole time in the water, he still looks really cold.

Dive time:107mins
Max depth: 12 meters
Fun factor: 10

11/17/09
Green Grotto cave & Green Grotto small lake

We met Mrs Lamm at around 10am and we walk to check out the sump in Green Grotto, the walk to the sump is grandiose, what a cool looking cave!. it is huge, tunnels branch off in all directions and it takes a good 15 minute walk to get there.

map courtesy of Guy Van Rentergem -Jamaica Underground-

They explain to us it used to be an old disco and that the government cleaned it out and opened it up to the public as a show cave.
We go deeper into the cave and down a series of steps down to the water level, the sump which is a large pool, is really cool looking, there are bats flying around all over the place and I notice that the bats are roosting in cylindrical potholes in the ceiling that look similar to the ones I saw when I dove Manantial de Porfidia, I wonder how those form, very strange feature.
Paul jumps in with a single tank to check out the sump and finds what he thinks are two possible flooded passages, Thomas wants to do the first dive so we go back to the car and get 2 tanks and head back down. Thomas finds a lead right of the platform that goes in through a series of boulders but it is choked, on the far left side of the sump there is a vertical fissure that goes down to -26 feet at which point it gets too tight to pass, however there is ongoing passage beyond this and Thomas suspects there is a network of tunnels beyond this but it is too tight for a human to pass.
Thomas checks out the rest of the sump and does not find any ongoing passages but does note that beyond the various boulder chokes you can definitely see ongoing cave passages.

Thomas and Paul did notice a significant amount of trash throughout the sump, bottles, cups, helmets and broken kids surfboard and even flash cubes!. it was used as a disco once and needs to be cleaned up..
On our next trip here we will spend a day in the sump to clean it out..

After this dive we go and check out the small lake on the GG property, now I cannot tell if this is a partially collapsed sink or if it a depression that goes down to the water table, I am leaning toward a sink just because it looks like one but I may be wrong.

On the S side there is a big limestone cliff that comes right down to the water's edge all the way to the bottom, very cool looking with clear but brackish water.
It is late and they inform us we have only until 5pm so Paul jumps in with a single tank to do a quick recon dive. I take a walk and go to the big Pond Lake on the other side the limestone cliffs go right down to the edge and I see numerous small cave entrances, too small for me to get in but nonetheless there are flooded holes everywhere, I walk around the edge for about 30 minutes and find what could be a dividable entrance, like an idiot that I am I forgot to bring a light with me and I give myself a big smack on the forehead. Definite potential as the limestone cliff goes around the big lake which is 463 meters across, and I reason that since there is a large dry cave system here there should be a good chance that a flooded system could exist here too. We will be back here for sure.

Paul comes up from the recon dive and thinks there is potential and we decide to make this our first dive the following day, he also is 90% sure he saw a Parrot fish, it could be as this used to be a fishing attraction and someone could have put it in there.

11/18/09 Green Grotto Small Lake, Marine Lab & Malati Cave

We plan on getting to the Small Lake early by 9am, so we actually get there at 10:45. We kit up and jump in, the water is very clear and you can see all the way to the bottom, there is a very pronounced halocline and it makes for a dreamlike landscape. We dive along edges looking for horizontal passages, we find one wide tunnel about 30 meters long and you can see limestone rock at the end and a possible cave passage, however the first 30 meters is under a very weird and unstable looking mangrove/dirt/roots ceiling. I have never seen anything like this before, it looks like it is rock but it it is actually made up of a jelly like organic compound. I go in a bit but it does not look safe, and I really do not like this so I do not chance it and go out.
We continue around the edges and find a cave entrance, Thomas goes in and Paul and I wait outside in case Thomas has to back out,the passage is tight and between a few large boulders.
After about 5 minutes Thomas comes back, he went in for about 80 meters through a series of boulders and it ends up in a room about 15 meters wide, there was no ongoing passage after that.
We continue around the edge and we find a small cavern I see two eyes glow in the dark like cats eyes in car headlights, a big tarpon freaks out and charges us, very cool.
The ambiance of the dive is like a haunted forest there are tree and mangrove roots everywhere and you end up diving under them, very freaky looking.
We continue around the edges twice to make sure we did not miss anything but we do not find any ongoing cave. We go to the Jerk center to eat really good food and we then go to the Marine Lab to dive the spring in front.
We get in the water at the boat ramp and swim out to the white buoy directly in front were there is an up welling of freshwater. I see the entrance, it is a small fissure about a foot or so wide and two feet high, I take a look inside and it looks like it gets bigger right after the entrance restriction. It is definitely passable if I push my tanks ahead of me and wiggle my way in but in doing so I would damage all the coral, sponges and marine life at the entrance so I decide not to go in, however this is definitely a freshwater cave spring with a good amount of flow and what looks like going cave.
We swim over the the W side and do a dive along the small limestone ledges, now although we do not find any cave passage, what an incredible amount of fish and multi colored underwater algae! it looks like an underwater wonderland and all this is less than 4 foot of water. I notice a large amount of freshwater coming out of every crack and fissure in the rock everywhere, but no way in.

On our way back we stop in Greenwood to eat, I speak with an old fisherman there and he shows us a cave entrance in the ocean about 100 meters from shore called Malati Cave.
Paul swims out with a mask as our tanks were empty to check it out. He sees a a large cave entrance that goes straight down, very, very cool.
We will check this out next time.

All in all it was a great trip and we can't wait to come back, caves aside Jamaica is a really cool country, the food, the people and landscape it made for a memorable trip, and especially the salt fish Akee, wow I could eat that all day!!.
Oh and did I mention, it is mainly all limestone.

Again many thanks to Jan Paul and all JCO members for making our expedition possible.

Ya Mon...