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A Cavort is a Cavort of Course of Course... Paul Aughey Photos By Cyntia Butler, Caren Beck 03/14/2003 I headed down to the 2003 Florida Cave Cavort held in Belleview Florida. There were about 150 cavers present including a reasonable contingent of cave divers. The event was held at Tuck's Cave and I was camped about 150' from the cave. 03/15/2003 The next morning before breakfast I toured Tucks Cave. I entered the horizontal entrance and toured the dendritic walking passages with my mini-mag. I then got a GPS point on the 20' pit entrance. After breakfast a large group of cavers consisting of Bill Walker, Stephanie Juiliano, Sarah and her daughter Sequoyah Rain Cervone, Adam Scherer, Dan and his son Steve Straley, Sullivan and Caren Beck, and Becky and Sean Roberts headed 1.3 miles from the camp to the house of a nearby landowner, Dan, who owns the parking area to Bellview Formation Cave. The actual land owner doesn't live in Florida but had said that Dan could visit the caves. Dan, however, didn't know where they were located so we tromped through the Florida jungle following Dan Straley to the 5' climbdown entrance. The cave is about 300' long and mostly walking nicely formationed passage to a 20' climb-up to E2. From there we walked about a quarter mile to Loquat Pit. The entrance is a 2'x2' hole that bells-out down a 20' pit. A rickety aluminum ladder was in the cave, but we rigged a cable ladder and handline. The cave goes about 500' to a lake room and has a depth of over fifty feet. Much of the cave is reasonable-sized walking passage in the very white and powdery Ocala limestone. On the way back to the car Dan the land owner asked if we wanted to see his "big cats". Having recently seen E.T. Davis' large house cats, which probably weigh close to 20 pounds, I was curious to see how Dan's cats compared. His oldest cat, the six year old Cali was the smallest at 106 lbs, followed by Venus, and Zach. Zach was male and had to weigh close to 140 lbs. They weren't house cats, but rather the extremely rare Florida panther. Dan and his wife have permits to take Florida panthers, alligators, and several snakes into schools to show animals that are indigenous to the state. There were two levels of fences but he walked right in and wrestled with the largest of cats while cavers with digital cameras did their best impressions of the Paparazzi. After the cat show we visited two nerd holes called Dragon's Lair and the two-entranced tiny climbdown feature called Fissure Cave. I then took a short hike to solo Roadside Cave and found the entrance had collapsed about four feet in. While the entrance may be able to be dug back open I wasn't interested and hiked back to the Cavort.
03/16/2003 Brian Williams, Wendy Shirah, Bruce Brewer, Sullivan and Caren Beck, Cindy Butler, Steve Clardy, and I visited Catacombs Cave. This cave is a hibernacula for a large colony of (Southeastern?) bats and this was the last weekend the cave was open for a while. I had tried to visit this cave for years, but it was always closed due to bats or high water. We rigged a 100' handline and climbed down twenty feet, through the gate, and then down another forty feet or so into an entrance area. This is where the water started. After about forty feet there was a two-foot long sump we had to pop under and then we toured several thousand feet of mostly wading and swimming passage. It was well worth the wait, the cave is awesome. Once again was a great caving event -- small, but very fun.
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