Lost River Cave

This is the one thing that everyone agreed on in advance. A pontoon boat into a cave! Sounded great. Great is probably an overstatement. It was okay. A hike out to the boat - not bad except for the uphill bits - mostly on the way back.

On the walk to the boat the tour guide talked about some Civil War soldiers who went swimming in a "blue hole" and were never seen again. Their uniforms were found on the bank. Assumed drowned or eaten by cave monsters. I don't remember whether they were Union soldiers or Confederate soldiers, but I don't believe they drowned or fell through to China. I think they deserted. Well, why not take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves? The blue hole was rumored to be 400 feet deep, if not bottomless. It's possible they discovered that it connected to an underground river and hid some spare clothes in the cave and just went on to live a life where they weren't being shot at all the time. Speculation on my part but far more interesting than drowning.

Then we arrived at the entrance to the cave. Apparently someone had built a night club at the entrance to the cave. In the days before air conditioning it drew a crowd - particularly in summer. The night club is gone but I think you can rent it for special events.

Our guide led us on to the boat boarding area. I'm not sure why they were calling it a pontoon boat. I didn't see any pontoons. Then again, maybe we just assumed it was a pontoon boat. I had visions of standing on a pontoon boat floating into a cave and getting lots of great photos. We were sitting in a boat - I don't think it was a pontoon boat - way too easy to rock it. Emphasis on sitting. If anyone had stood up that boat would have tipped over and everyone would have gone into the water. I don't think pontoon boats do that. It was difficult to do anything much other than look straight ahead. We were packed in pretty tight and slight movement seemed to rock the boat.

There weren't many lights in the cave. It's possible there weren't any.  Mostly the guide used a flashlight to point out interesting features. Consequently, most of the photos were not particularly stellar. Poor lighting coupled with the inability to move freely limited the "Kodak" moments. But all in all, it was a good visit.

Here's the best photo I got inside the cave.