Jeff's Mona Report

 

Last week we joined a scientific research group of cavers going to Mona Island for 8 days.  Mona Island measures about 7 x 4 miles and is about 45 miles off the West side of Puerto Rico.  It rises about 200’ out of the water and is sheer cliff all around except for a few places.  The top is basically flat. 

Most of the caves ring the edge of the top of the island.  They are only a few dozen feet from the surface of the island with spectacular “windows” overlooking the ocean with sheer cliff below.  The caves are flank margin caves and were formed differently than the caves on PR.  Most of the caves we went into were mined heavily until about 1927.  Damage to the caves was very apparent.  It is widely accepted that bat or bird guano is what was mined.  The caves were wide open but only 4 to 8 feet tall.  Some went in 1000 feet but most were close to the edge of the cliff.

As an engineer with a scientific background but not a scientist it was interesting to listen to some of the conversations between members of the group.  In my mind I couldn’t get consistent answers to obvious questions I had.  It leads me to believe not much is known about what went on the last few hundred years.  Is it bat or bird guano or something else?  How did it get there and what happened to all the bats and birds.  We saw very few bats and birds.  Some of the mined material was so close to the ceiling how could so many bats or birds get in there?  Since these are flank margin caves how did all the rocks get in there?

The camping area was nicer than I expected and had showers (with no shower heads).  The water was not potable and we had to bring all our drinking water.  Our food situation was dismal except for a good selection of breakfast cereal and oatmeal (purchased at 4AM on the way to the boat because it was forgotten).   Most of our food was canned or boxed with a large percentage consisting of candy, cookies, and granola bars (looks like the food shopping was done by guys).

The new visitor's/science center must have cost several millions of dollars to build.  It was very nice and had a lot of solar panels to power it.  Too bad the only visitors to see it will be the illegal Dominicans, Cubans, or drug dealers before they are arrested by DNR/Customs.  Thirteen Cubans made it to shore (US soil) the day we left.   Getting a permit to visit Mona is not easy and Diana spent a lot of time and effort getting a permit for our group.  This is public land and people are supposed to be able to visit and enjoy it.  It’s either “not their job” or easier to say no for the DNR employees.  Maybe they want it to be their own private island.  The 4 DNR “guards” stationed on the island were nice, helpful, and friendly but they are not the ones issuing a permit. 

I haven’t mentioned yet that it was Hot Hot Hot.  It rained so much the prior month the mosquitoes ate us alive.  DEET didn’t work well.  At least the mosquitoes disappeared after 7pm and we could escape by going into the water.  They were so bad they were even in the caves.  In several caves Katrina and I wore mosquito netting over our heads.  Fortunately Katrina bought a couple of nets at Wal-Mart while she was buying our 5 gallon water jugs.

The heat and humidity gave us blisters and rashes very quickly.  It was so hard to do anything.  The longest hike I went on was 7 miles RT and that was difficult.  I drank over a gallon of water on that hike.We went to a bunch of caves:  Day 2 Negra and Aleman. Day 3 we were looking for Capitan but found Gatos.  Day 4 Esqueleto (this was second best).  Day 5 was a long snorkel.  We saw a small stingray, turtle, squid, octopus, and a big barracuda.   The water was warm and clear.  We kept running into cold water and tried to find if it was from a spring.  We came close to finding many springs but we couldn’t pinpoint the source. Are we lost already? Here Tom is consulting one of the maps we were given.

Look in the front of this picture- the whole cave floor has been blown up & mined.

Day 6 was the Disney ride to the east side of the island.  We went in the north side of Cueva Lireo and rounded the corner of the island and came out the south side.  This was our favorite trip of the week.   On the way back we got attacked by a big Mona Iguana.  It really was ferocious jumping and biting everything it could.  We couldn’t drive around it because there was no room on the road/path.  The sides of the cart were open and the iguana was trying to jump in.  Shortly after passing the iguana the road turned into a lake for a long long way.  That was crazy but fun.  A perfect way to end the day.

My first Scorpion

I love this picture.  Katrina enjoying the view.

The end of Lireo

Day 7 Tom, Frank, and I headed out to Espenal.  We stopped at Cueva Capitan first and explored that for an hour.  Then we stopped in Cueva Gato for lunch.  Then it was off to Espenal.  We carefully followed flagging tape and did not want to get lost or off the trail that far away from camp or water.  We made it back just in time for dinner.  Katrina helped survey Cueva Cucaracha  near camp and explored Cueva Diamonte by herself also near camp.

A big pig skull

So many goat skulls

Day 8 Katrina showed us Cucaracha and Diamonte.  We also walked down the beach and did some more snorkeling.

Day 9 we got up at 5am and waited and waited for the boat to arrive.  Finally around 7:30 the boat showed up and we were happy to get out of Dodge. 

More Mona- the Not-Caves Part

Like I said before Mona is a buggy, harsh, not-pleasant place full of poisonous plants and not much else. When I was buying water containers I saw some $2 bug nets for your head that I picked up almost as a joke - little did I know that we would use them EVERY DAY! Here is Jeff on one of the trails to one of the caves with his little bug net on. We do a lot of caving and haven't had any exhaustion problems but this island is hot hot hot and there is no shade and the water is what you bring and it is exhausting doing anything. We ended up at this sign while looking for a cave we never found. We did find a couple others but it seemed like a never ending walk.

This mean-spirited iguana depiction is really accurate. This is one of the food boxes. We had one of these laying on its side where we stuffed our stuff. At night we heard stuff moving around and mostly it was hermit crabs, but sometimes the iguanas would walk around camp. Mainly our "food" storage hut sheltered ants. We had two invasions and had to pull everything out. After it rained a couple of the nights we had ants. Not pleasant. Why here's one of the monster iguanas now...

I did find a rock that looked like a turtle. It was outside one of the caves. Water was dripping onto it and it looked like a purposeful thing.

One thing that made the trip was the beach! I have to say I expected the typical Puerto Rican beach - beautiful but with garbage. This beach was stunningly beautiful and since no one can go there was free of garbage! It also was the lee side of the island so I am sure the other side was packed with crap but we didn't see it here! Just crystal clear water, 86 degrees or more and fairly calm. Snow white sand with pink flecks and spotty reefs.

The park rangers were really nice and let us charge camera batteries. They loaned us a vehicle so we could travel to the other part of the island and were pleasant to talk to! They thought it was funny though when I laid on the ground to photograph these palms...I was happy with the photo and didn't get clobbered while under them!

The dock had  this really big boulder near it. One of the days we snorkeled all the way down to one of the points which was  long way away. The water was nice and clear and we saw stingrays and all the usual players.

Camp was on a nice beach (except for the ant infestations). It rained a couple nights but that cooled it off and we had pulled in our "drying" towels and stuff already.

Here is our home for the week. What saved me was the air mattress - besides the mosquito head thing it was another wise thing to bring. The tarp was also smart for when it rained and it did rain pretty hard a couple nights.

You can't have a cave story without a lost soul! Deep inside every cave you will always find lost souls. For that reason cavers always bring along duc tape or gorilla tape. Nothing is worst than trying to go across sharp rock...trying to climb waterfalls or breakdown without a shoe. We had one guy lose both souls and he had to crawl out and it was awful hiking back to the car. That was part of the hog hell trip. This was Frank's moment to shine but luckily there was gorilla tape in Jeff's pack.

Caving is hard on the shoes. Tom seems to have worn out one left and one right and repackaged the remainders into a new pair! Don't throw out the good one...

There were signs here just as if it were a real park that the public has access to. Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to get permits to come here. People can come for the day in their own boats, but it better be a large boat and you better know what you are doing...Mona Passage is pretty rough. Maybe the sign is for all the activities the Dominicans can do when their little boats arrive and they claim wet foot dry foot. This gives you a good idea of what the island is like. The dark band just under the surface is a series of cave openings. Pretty darn neat!

Finally we have the Visitor's Center - a beautiful facility with future researcher labs and equipment. It isn't open yet, but here it is. Unfortunately all the solar panels that power it are facing the wrong direction and the windows don't look toward the ocean. Kind of a missed opportunity to capture breezes and views. Anyway, the Dominican's will probably get to see more of it than Puerto Rican's. Hope they enjoy it!

Fruit, Mona Island and Rainy Day Cats

Holy moly - heard a smack and went out into the yard and found this full-grown avocado! I've been watching the trees and a lot of small fruits are dropping off. The ones left are pretty tiny. Where did this big one come from? Why aren't there other big ones yet? Hope it ripens is all I can say. I'll be watching the trees on a daily basis from now on!

With the rainy weather everything has exploded into blooms (loving the orange blossoms) and fruit. Tiny fruits double in size every day it seems. Also with the weather the cats are all hanging around inside. Even the ones we hardly ever see, like Stripes here. It was sunny until around 1:30 so I gathered up some mangoes and picked some parcha. I'm thinking I'll boil down some mango (soften the fibres), whir it in the food processor, run it through a sieve and use it for juice, sauce, ice cream (with coconut milk instead of dairy - haven't tried it so it'll be an experiment). I'll save the parcha for another day.

More furry friends taking up space - hey, where am I supposed to sit? I am hoping this post isn't messed up like the last few - why is the text doing what it is doing? Why the weird spacing? Why??? So we are going to go to Mona Island. There is a waiver (like for everything else) but this one is particularly amusing and I've never seen it quite phrased this way.

Event : Cave survey/exploration at Mona Island
3. Hereby acknowledges that THE ACTIVITIES OF THE EVENT(S) COULD BE DANGEROUS and involve the risk of serious injury/and death and/or property damage. Each of THE UNDERSIGNED, also expressly acknowledges the INJURIES RECEIVED MAY BE COMPOUNDED OR INCREASED BY NEGLIGENT RESCUE OPERATIONS OR PROCEDURES OF THE RELEASES.

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