PONOR 3 & CUEVA CLARA

February 05, 2013




Cueva Clara Puerto Rico
Last day of caving we checked out of the hotel and went to the pastry shop to meet up with the rest of the cavers for the day. Pat and I had a conversation about swift water techniques. Pat was concerned about swimming in the cave so I made a flotation device out of my backpack for him so he will be able to float safely while traversing this cave. Ponor in Spanish mean Losing River and this cave is known to have extreme flash floods. It is a part of the inferillo system which is a connection to the rio camuy system. We parked our cars and entered into the cave and quickly saw a lot of garbage on the ceiling including a refrigerator and other heavy debris only very strong water could carry through this system. The cave was not very decorated but we were told there were a sprinkler a beach area and a pond with a waterfall so we were interested in checking this out. We got about 500 feet into the cave to a location where there was a pile of garbage, a dead animal, chemicals on the surface and drug bottles floating around. From the time we spent in Puerto rice we managed to get some open wounds and on top of the flash flood dangers and swimming proficiency we decided to turn out of the cave and headed to the commercial section of the rio camuy at the state park
 
Cueva Clara Puerto Rico
The commercial section was interesting to be in because everyone was clean well rested and excited to take a trolley down to the commercial cave. It was a bit expensive to get in but it was very interesting to see this section which turns out to be a very beautiful section of the cave system and where we would have washed out of if we got caught in a flash flood. We took this trolley down and was talking to people around us about where we have been which peaked their interest since this was a lot of their first times in a cave. The trolley took up to the entrance and it was another nice entrance (pavement of course) which took us around and inside the large dome room. The light inside the cave gave a nice overview of the size and mass this room has which was another nice aspect of going to the commercial section of the cave.
 
Cueva Clara Puerto Rico
We made it around to the river portion and exited the cave relaxing and pondering how nice it would have been to have a trolley take us down some of the other sections of the system. We made it back up to the visitor center and I soon found myself surrounded by a classroom full of children asking me questions about caving and the sections of the rio camuy system we have been into. Apparently the people we were talking to were teachers and they wanted us to talk to their students a bit about our adventures and what caving is like. Once we left the location we headed back to the el yunque to live out the last day of our vacation, relax a bit and traverse the rio cubuy.
Cueva Clara Puerto Rico

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