Okinawa Caves Part Two of Three The cave that became my brother and my second home, we called the Horseshoe Cave. We called it that because it was a deep cave, and it was shaped like a horseshoe with two entrances. It was a half loop cave in the side of the cliff above the river. The two entrances were only about fifty feet apart, and the cave was maybe two hundred feet in length. It was located about halfway between our house and the ocean, in the face of the cliff above the river. Way above the river. At this point the cliff was about two hundred or more feet high. It was a sheer cliff, just maybe one degree off of vertical, the horizontal dimension wedging slightly out towards the bottom, very very slightly. It was, in a word, steep as hell. But it had a very fissured face, and could be climbed, albeit slowly and carefully. The main benefit or our cave was that it was only about thirty feet below the top, and it had a fairly well traversable trail down to it. We didnt discover that until after we had climbed up from the bottom, without ropes, without pitons, without common sense. It was a hell of a climb, and we, at that age, were more monkey than human when it came to climbing. When we found the easy way up from the cave, we never made that climb again, except once. The cave was small, we couldnt stand up in it. At the mid-point where it turned back to the cliff face it had a venturi like squeezing up, it became quite narrow. In fact we could barely squirm though that narrow point and we were children. And it was dark, bone bone dark, without a light you couldnt see a thing, you couldnt tell if your eyes were open or closed. We didnt have flashlights, they were still fairly rare among kids in those days. We had candles, and that was it, for light. If youve never explored a cave, as a young kid, by candle light, then you just do not know what spooky is. Just outside the right (if you were in a boat on the river looking up) opening of the horseshoe cave was a ledge, maybe six feet wide, a veritable balcony, fringed on the outer edge with those palm looking shrubs. The trail leading down from the top of the cliff was well hidden, which is why we had climbed up from the bottom. We traversed the top of that ridge every day and had never seen it. We had discovered a boys paradise. Hidden, secret, had a spooky cave, and an outstanding view of the river and the country side across the river, and no one could see us if we ducked down behind the palms. Paradise. My brother and I kept is a secret from all but two people. David Morgan, our very good friend and neighbor (and how I wish I could connect with him again some day) was introduced by a rite of passage I wont describe, to the horseshoe cave, and became a regular member of our secret society. Well, I will describe part of his initiation. It was him being led, blindfolded, into the middle of the cave where we had put a dogs skull with a short candle inside of it. The rest of that story will remain, as solemnly sworn to at the time, an undying secret. Some things are sacred after all. The second person was our mother. I dont know what possessed us to take our mother there - or why she agreed in the first place. I will say this, our mother didnt know the meaning of fear. That woman didnt have reverse in her transmission. She was utterly fearless in all things. So we took her up to the cave from the bottom. That death defying harrowing climb up a vertical cliff with fissures to get the occasional toe or hand hold in. And she climbed it like drinking a cup of coffee - just no big deal. We were humbled yet again by her tiger spirit. And when we left, we climbed down that cliff with her, for the very first time. We didnt want her to know about the easy way. We didnt want her to come find us whenever she felt like it. And the way she climbed up that cliff, well we had no doubt of her coming to get us, but only if it was really important. And then there was the monster that lived in the cave, a truly horrific and terrifying monster that Ill try to describe in part three.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 04:49:17 +0000
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