David: Well this is the crystal cave of Bermuda, not just, not just caves but ground as well. I’ve never seen royal palms behind us amusing.
Jessie: I thought I just gonna go right down into the caves and looking around me there are gorgeous gardens and flowers and magnificent trees.
David: Oh, it’s all magnificent, not just the underground, but when you’re underground, you’ll find it even more magnificent. The caves are without doubt premier visitation for all visitors coming here. We have 85,000 visitors coming a year which is a quite a percentage of our total tourism number. Well, this is an adventure for a new child, to go into the, into the caves, go underground, see the lakes, see the stalagmites, the stalactites and all the other formations that are there.
Jessie: It’s an adventure for any age kid, really.
David: Yes, in fact, we like to think that most of our visitors are children. Well, this is the entrance to the cave now.
Jessie: Hi.
Leonard: Hi, I’m Lenny, your guide.
Jessie: I’m Jessie, nice to meet you Lenny.
Leonard: Alright, you’re ready to do a little sprilonking?
Jessie: I am so ready.
Leonard: Alright.
David: Crystal cave is discovered about 101 years ago, two young boys were out playing cricket one evening and one of them lost the ball into some bushes and when he went to discover the ball he found it had gone into a very small hole in the ground. Then, with a lot of rivado, they open the hole up, went and get some flashlights, well, it could’ve been candles in those days and then descended into the caves, and that’s how the crystal caves were discovered. And then they were developed as show caves. When it was first opened it had a wooden staircase leading down a hundred feet to the water, this was just not successful for the number of visitors who are, one of course was the famous American humorist, Mark Twain. But I got no quotes of any words that he spoke to about that trip, then in 1912 work commence on the construction of the tunnel, all hand dug, four years later it was opened and that is the entrance today.
Jessi: Oh my gosh, we’re in a completely different world down here.
Leonard: Oh yeah, isn’t it amazing?
Jessie: Yeah, it is.
Leonard: This is just about where the boys came down to a cave, and that is a hundred and thirty feet above sea level, when we get to the bottom of these flight of step, we’ll be at sea level. And the tour is actually came down through this entrance for about 7 years before that entrance was blasted out.
Jessie: Oh those poor tourists.
Leonard: Yeah, now can you understand why we blast that entrance open.
Jessie: I’m really happy with it.
Leonard: Yeah, it is scary coming down through there.
David: Both of the caves have three of the different of the five ages of Bermuda geology. So we have the upper town hill, the lower town hill and the wallsing formations, these are the three lowers and the two on top of that. In Bermuda’s history, geology has a series of sand dunes. And one of the most incredible parts of it, is it’s a wonderful laboratory for sea level rise. We can demonstrate to people how the sea level has been at least 13 feet higher than it is now, and up to 60-70 feet low.
Leonard: This is what the inside of a limestone cave looks like. This hills from which the cave was formed began formation more than 30 million years ago from the remains of marine life. As those shells and fossils accumulated, they were broken down into tiny fragments, bones and dunes and they hardened and formed these limestone hills. The rain water seeping in from the surface, seeps down, dissolves the limestone creating void, those voids collapse into larger caverns creating this cave system and all the passage ways. As you can see, build us some very deep under water caverns.
Jessie: Oh, that was, I thought I’m seeing a reflection, that’s incredible.
Leonard: Yeah, that’s not a wall, that’s the reflection of the ceiling above, but that actually goes down as deep as 60 feet.
Jessie: That’s really neat.
Leonard: Yes.
Jessie: Water is really cleared out.
Leonard: Oh yeah, it stays clear like that because there’s no sunlight in here and there’s no photosynthesis, no algae forming, no microscopic organisms can survive here and it also replenishes itself if it tides twice a day, so this water is constantly moving in and out of the cave.
Jessie: So there’s actually an ocean entrance somewhere in different parts of the caves.
Leonard: Yes, there is and that would be right in the back of the cave, and that passage way is about a half mile long.
David: Crystal caves is just crystalline white, brilliant. Fantasy cave has been touch by the soils and the geology of the Bermuda and this has cause the formations to have a orange hue. The formations are giant chandeliers, they’re just incredible. Quite, quite different from crystal caves, that is why we have so many people, over half of our visitors visit both of the caves.
Leonard: This is a floating walkway that we’re about to go across, nothing to be afraid of, you won't get sea sick or anything like that. But this bridge was first installed in the early forty’s. Before that the tourist used to actually go to the back of the cave by boat, but if you look over here, these are our organ pipe formations. And in times of yore, the older guys used to play tunes in this pipes.
Jessie: How many years would it take to something like this to form?
Leonard: They form on an average about 1 cubic inch every hundred years, so this one right here, maybe 70 or 80 cubic inches, so that would make this formation at least 7 to 8 thousand years old. And as you can see, they’re wet, that means they’re still forming, so this still have a lot more growing to do.
Jessie: They’re just babies.
Leonard: These are babies. Yes, and the hundred years that we’ve coming to the cave, very little has change. Well, it’s a whole different experience from, you know, the norm, the beaches, the beautiful scenery above ground, it’s like a world into its own. You know, when you separate from all the hassle and bussle that’s going on above the world, you get a chance to escape and you knew if you come with a partner, you and your partner can just take it all in, it definitely makes your trip to Bermuda much more romantic.
David: For a hundred years, we’ve been an ecotourism site, it is totally natural, anything that is really man made is the tunnel and the floating walkway.
Jessie: So this is the original ecotour tour?
David: The very original and it will always be an ecotour. We don’t have to do anything to make it big.