This time on Jonathan Bird’s Blue World, Jonathan goes deep into a Bahamas cave to
find spectacular crystal formations!
Hi I’m Jonathan Bird and welcome to my world!
I’m fascinated with caves.
From the cenotes of the Yucatan to the Blue Holes of the Bahamas, caves are astonishingly
beautiful environments often filled with lavish decorations, crystal clear water and strange,
alien life forms…
…hidden in the pitch darkness.
For years I have heard about a remote cave in the Bahamas filled with incredibly fragile
crystal formations.
It has been compared to diving inside a chandelier.
Only a handful of people have ever been into the so-called Crystal Cave, and I really want
to see it.
I contacted world-renown cave explorer Brian Kakuk who operates Bahamas Underground, a
cave diving operation in remote Abaco, Bahamas where he explores caves, leads expeditions
into the caves, and advocates for the protection of Bahamas caves.
Brian agreed to take me to the Crystal Cave.
Cameraman Todd and I fly to sunny Abaco, Bahamas on the cave exploration expedition of a lifetime!
At Brian’s shop, we prepare our gear, fill tanks and load the van.
I am both excited and nervous to finally see this elusive cave.
The Crystal Cave is way out in the pine forest, actually not very far from Dan’s Cave where
I did my cave training.
Brian is confident that the two caves actually connect, but he hasn’t found the connecting
passageway yet.
The opening to Crystal Cave has just a thin ceiling of limestone separating it from the
forest above.
Brian built a set of steps down into the water, with a platform for the gear.
Except for the low ceiling, it’s really convenient.
I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be the first to dive this cave.
From the surface, it sure doesn’t look like much.
Brian has extensively mapped Crystal Cave and most of it is totally inaccessible to
divers with traditional backmount tanks.
Most cave divers wear their tanks on their backs, but some caves have tight restrictions
where backmount divers won’t fit.
Sidemount divers wear their tanks on their sides, so they have a thinner profile, and
fit through smaller spaces.
Today our entire team will be diving sidemount.
My hope is to reach a famous room in the Crystal Cave called the Glass Factory.
With our plan in place, we suit up.
Then, the moment of truth.
We head over to the cave entrance to begin what will be a two hour dive into Crystal
Cave.
Standing in the water, less than two feet deep, it’s hard to believe that this cave
actually goes anywhere!
Brian, Todd and I don our tanks and check our lights.
Even though I’m no longer a student, we still do all the safety checks, because that’s
what cave divers do, no matter how experienced they are.
I’m a little nervous because this cave has a lot of very small passages with fragile
stuff and I don’t want to break anything so I’m going to be trying to move as little
as possible.
Just be very still, and not be a spaz.
OK, prepare to be amazed!
We head to a tiny opening at the back of the cave, only about two feet tall, and pass through
into another world.
Just beyond that restriction it opens up into a massive room.
There is hardly any cavern zone.
We immediately pass the Stop sign.
I fire up the lights on my camera and start following Brian on our path towards the Glass
Factory, which is about a thousand feet from the entrance.
Almost immediately we hit a tight restriction.
Brian and I already made a plan for this one.
I pass my big camera through to him first, then wiggle up and through myself.
Things are tight as we make our way closer to the Glass Factory, and in many cases, Brian
has me go first to get the clearest water for my shots.
He also keeps an eye on my fins, to be sure I don’t kick anything fragile!
Almost all the formations in Crystal Cave are in fact made of calcite crystal.
In most caves, a fat stalagmite like this would be made of opaque white calcite, otherwise
known as limestone.
But here in Crystal Cave, it’s a translucent crystalline treasure that glows with Brian’s
light.
Nobody is quite sure why the calcite here forms crystals.
Over the last hundred thousand years, this cave has alternated between submerged and
dry at least five times.
During an ice age when glaciers cover much of the world, sea levels fall and the Bahamas
caves go dry.
Water dripping in from above creates cave formations like stalactites and stalagmites.
They can only form in a dry cave.
With the Earth currently between ice ages, sea levels are high, and the caves are flooded,
allowing us to swim from formation to formation.
As Brian leads us further into the cave, we arrive at what looks like a crystalline cake
frosting.
He sticks his hand out to gently demonstrate what I haven’t noticed yet.
I carefully position myself for a close-up shot, and then, I see clearly what he is doing.
These formations, called draperies, are so thin that I can see Brian’s hand right through
them!
It’s like they are mode of frosted glass.
Formed by thousands of years of dripping water, these exquisite crystal curtains are super
fragile.
Brian touches them ever so gently.
I’m not touching them at all!
I’m happy to film him!
Brian motions me over to a shelf to show me a thick layer of red dust.
Tens of thousands of years ago, during a long dry spell, strong winds picked up iron-rich
sand in the Sahara desert.
The finest particles blew all the way across the Atlantic and landed in North America,
especially the Bahamas.
Rain eventually washed this dust down into the limestone where it formed a layer.
The high iron-content makes it red like rust.
The Sahara dust shows up in many of the cave formations as a red layer.
Next Brian leads us to an area of crystal dripstone, where water was running gently
along the floor.
A bat skeleton, 15,000 years old, frozen permanently in crystal, like a bug in amber.
Bats flew all the way in here back when it was dry.
When Brian uses his light up close to the crystal, I can see the reddish tint in a deeper
layer of the stone.
That’s the Sahara Dust layer again.
Not far from the bat, Brian directs me to this puzzling crystal formation.
This was a pool in the floor of the cave, filled with mineral-rich water that grew huge
crystals.
The tiny stalactites from the top grew huge crystals when they reached the water surface.
Crystals formed within the water grew towards the surface and spread out.
Nearby, a smaller crystal pool, filled with smaller crystals that look like gemstones.
As we push on, we finally reach the glass factory.
It’s a room full of insanely delicate formations known as soda-straws, dripping from the ceiling.
Brian sneaks in first to provide some light.
There’s a section of the floor that was damaged sometime in the past when the floor
of the cave settled.
That’s where we go in, staying low to avoid breaking the formations on the ceiling.
This is one of the few times where Brian actually wants us to crawl on the floor, not float.
I make my way slowly into the Glass Factory.
I can’t believe I’m really here.
I have seen pictures of this place for years and never suspected I would be here myself.
It’s just magical.
Brian calls this formation Frozen Rain.
Some of the formations have those bulbous crystal tips like I saw in the pool, showing
that at some point, the water level was probably right at the base of these formations.
Brian calls these flower formations.
With Brian’s help, I am positioned in a place where I can film safely without breaking
anything.
It’s almost too much to take in.
I have a hard time concentrating on shooting because everywhere I look I see something
amazing.
All of the soda-straws have a gap between the top and the bottom.
They were once connected as thin columns, but as the floor subsided, they broke into
upper and lower halves.
The floor is littered with thousands of super thin formations that broke when that happened,
but the majority of the thicker formations are still here.
So why do they call these formations “soda straws?”
Many of them really are hollow, like a straw.
You could sip a beverage through this piece of fragile crystal!
Up at the ceiling, some of the formations have formed offshoots, going sideways instead
of down.
It seems illogical.
Brian points out a large section with this type of crystal growth.
They’re called helictites, and even experts in cave formations aren’t quite sure how
they defy gravity when they form.
The general consensus is that it’s a combination of wind and surface tension in the dripping
water.
So it’s possible that when this was a dry cave, there was a breeze through here.
Which means another entrance, or a connection to Dan’s cave, neither of which have yet
been discovered.
Having reached out thirds, we have to start heading back to the entrance.
We have been gone so long, our surface cameraman Pierre has fallen asleep!
Brian leads the way out, through the swirly water of the halocline.
Eventually we come back to that tight restriction and I have to squirm my way through again.
Definitely not as elegantly as Brian!
After some time decompressing, we emerge back into the cavern, and on to the surface.
That cave is like another planet!
The Glass Factory room is like nothing you have ever seen.
I can stop cave diving now.
I mean, it was fun taking the class and everything, but I don’t need to do it again because,
where am I ever going to find anything that beautiful?
Wait ‘till we show you the good stuff.
There can’t possibly be anything better than that!
With our grand adventure into Crystal Cave over, once again we begin the tedious process
of hauling our gear back to the van.
But I don’t mind, because all this gear made it possible for me to visit a place that
only a few dozen people have ever seen.
Many more people have been to the summit of Mount Everest than have ever ventured into
this cave and seen the Glass Factory.
Yes, I will admit that I have a lot of memorable adventures in the Blue World, but this one,
by far, is one of the most special.
The caves of Abaco are indeed treasures that need protection, with Brian Kakuk as their
most ardent advocate.
I’ll be doing my part to help Brian in his quest to protect these caves—the exquisite
Crystal Caves of Abaco.