Sunday, March 25, 2018

Dixon Hill Lighthouse Cave--John Snell

On March 21st 2018, we visited Lighthouse cave on Dixon Hill on San Salvador Island, the Bahamas. We arrived at the cave at around 9:40 in the morning and it was around 78 degrees Fahrenheit. It was very humid. Lighthouse cave is around 125000 years old, of pleistocene age. It is the perfect example of a flank margin cave. A flank margin cave has no surface opening until some form of erosion exposes the underlying cavity. Speleothems were abundant and have Farm since about 71000 years ago. This cave is one of the largest cavities in the Bahamian aisles.
To enter the cave, we climbed it down a metal Ladder into a spacious Cavern. There is water around the outside of this cavern. The water leads into different areas with other semi-large cavities. To access a couple of these separate rooms, we had to duck below the water surface and go under a very short archway.
There were 2 bats that were flying around within this cave. There was also a very strange looking centipede-type insect.
As I entered the water, fear and freezing temperatures greeted me. Right on the heels of Matt Carey, We continued on word looking for the path that would lead us on the loop so that we could come back to where we started and exit the cave. Matt showed no fear and was eager to find the right path, and even though I was nervous I followed him. The feeling of doing something that you're afraid of is extremely liberating, not to mention how awesome it was to be swimming in a cave.
This was legitimately one of the coolest experiences that I have ever had in my entire life, and I am extremely grateful.

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