3.17.2013
A St. Patrick's Day in Galapagos would not be complete without a bunch of green bananas. We snapped this photo yesterday while speaking with a local ranch owner regarding access to his caves. Bananas are of course not native to Galapagos, but they are widely grown here.
Today we wrapped up the survey of a cave that Bob, Theo and Aaron started yesterday while the rest of the team took a much deserved day off. The cave was located on the property of the highest end (read most expensive) resort on Santa Cruz. It was a very nice cave, complete with a tourist section (including trail and lights) and even a bridge crossing the deep lava trench in the upper section of the cave.
My team was cleaning up a lead in the lower trench today that we had skipped the day before when surveying the tourist trail. The passage started off nice, but quickly reached a breakdown pile where we had to squeeze around the right side of the passage. We continued the survey for several more stations before reaching a pit that we down-climbed to water in the lowest of five tubes stacked on each other at this location in the cave. Afterwards, we cleaned up some survey in the topmost tube that has windows connecting the main tour route through the cave. In places, the floor in the upper tube is only 8-10cm thick, with occasionally windows to the passage below. Extreme care was taken on each and every step taken in this part of the cave.
The other team (Bob, Scott, Eli and Rick T.0 finished off the down flow lead in the cave, adding another 180m to the survey. The cave eventually ended in a lava seal. The team had a bit of excitement when they discovered old dynamite wrapping paper and blasting wire. Concerned that there could be some leftover dynamite sweating, the team was extremely cautious until they assessed the situation and determined that there was no cause for alarm. Apparently the landowner had tried (and was wildly unsuccessful) to blast the lava seal in order to continue the cave.
The Cueva Royal Palm now stands at just over 1km of survey.
If you can believe it, we did all of that after lunch! Our original goal for the day was to go check out the longest known lava tube in South America. Situated on the south facing slopes of Santa Cruz, there is rumored to be a very long tube that has not been visited in several years, or perhaps decades. We hired two truck taxis that Said they knew where the cave was located, but it quickly became apparent that they did not. We spent most of an hour talking with locals trying to find the cave, any cave to survey. Eventually we did find the cave, but it was a segment higher in the flow and not the 3km cave. We sent two teams in to the cave and had it completed in less than 2 hours. The total surveyed length for Cueva Cascajo is about 450m.
Overall, we were able to put in a good day of cave survey, and the expedition total now stands at 8.2km.
A St. Patrick's Day in Galapagos would not be complete without a bunch of green bananas. We snapped this photo yesterday while speaking with a local ranch owner regarding access to his caves. Bananas are of course not native to Galapagos, but they are widely grown here.
 |
| bunches of bananas |
Today we wrapped up the survey of a cave that Bob, Theo and Aaron started yesterday while the rest of the team took a much deserved day off. The cave was located on the property of the highest end (read most expensive) resort on Santa Cruz. It was a very nice cave, complete with a tourist section (including trail and lights) and even a bridge crossing the deep lava trench in the upper section of the cave.
 |
| Bridge over 6m deep lava trench |
My team was cleaning up a lead in the lower trench today that we had skipped the day before when surveying the tourist trail. The passage started off nice, but quickly reached a breakdown pile where we had to squeeze around the right side of the passage. We continued the survey for several more stations before reaching a pit that we down-climbed to water in the lowest of five tubes stacked on each other at this location in the cave. Afterwards, we cleaned up some survey in the topmost tube that has windows connecting the main tour route through the cave. In places, the floor in the upper tube is only 8-10cm thick, with occasionally windows to the passage below. Extreme care was taken on each and every step taken in this part of the cave.
 |
| window to upper level from tourist trail (note caver for scale) |
The other team (Bob, Scott, Eli and Rick T.0 finished off the down flow lead in the cave, adding another 180m to the survey. The cave eventually ended in a lava seal. The team had a bit of excitement when they discovered old dynamite wrapping paper and blasting wire. Concerned that there could be some leftover dynamite sweating, the team was extremely cautious until they assessed the situation and determined that there was no cause for alarm. Apparently the landowner had tried (and was wildly unsuccessful) to blast the lava seal in order to continue the cave.
The Cueva Royal Palm now stands at just over 1km of survey.
If you can believe it, we did all of that after lunch! Our original goal for the day was to go check out the longest known lava tube in South America. Situated on the south facing slopes of Santa Cruz, there is rumored to be a very long tube that has not been visited in several years, or perhaps decades. We hired two truck taxis that Said they knew where the cave was located, but it quickly became apparent that they did not. We spent most of an hour talking with locals trying to find the cave, any cave to survey. Eventually we did find the cave, but it was a segment higher in the flow and not the 3km cave. We sent two teams in to the cave and had it completed in less than 2 hours. The total surveyed length for Cueva Cascajo is about 450m.
 |
| Scott Linn and Rick Haley in Cueva Cascajo |
Overall, we were able to put in a good day of cave survey, and the expedition total now stands at 8.2km.
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