Working at Cara Blanca Pool #1 this week. Incredible experience - a giant sink hole in the middle of the Belizean rainforest, with a Mayan ceremonial site along its rim. Here Marty O'Farrell dives along a cliff wall at about 90 feet, a location where he discovered a huge fossilized backbone (each individual vertebrate the size of a cantaloupe) in the rock along with a leg bone of an unknown creature. In the lower left is a debris field from sediment and jungle detritus fallen into the pool over 100's of years. At the top of the photo is a light layer of hydrogen sulphide (smells like rotten eggs) which the light barely penetrates.
Traded my camera for a collecting bag as we spent the afternoon excavating underwater in depths of 20-60 feet. Finds include stone tools, bones and pottery shards. Back at it in a few minutes.
Photo by Tony Rath
5 Comments
Re: Working at Cara Blanca Pool
[Re: Marty]
#463784 05/07/1304:49 AM05/07/1304:49 AM
Fascinating area en route between Spanish Lookout and Chan Chich which can also be accessed thru Belize District. The lagoon is beautiful and jungle dense. Well worth a visit,either on the surface or 60 ft below
Film of the season: See Marty O'Farrell's (Living Reef Belize) 7 minute video of the 2013 underwater explorations of Cara Blanca Pool 1. Thanks Marty for all your fab work!! A short film showing the challenges of diving and exploring one of the 23 sacred Mayan pools found in the deep jungles of western Belize.
A big thank you goes out to Marty (Living Reef Belize) for putting the video together and a even bigger thank you goes to Dr. Lisa J. Lucero for having us out there. Tony Rath, Chip, and Sala Jan, thanks a million for helping out this novice diver! It was an unforgetable experience!
Re: Working at Cara Blanca Pool
[Re: Marty]
#470662 08/21/1304:47 AM08/21/1304:47 AM
A feature about the archaeological work being done at Cara Blanca pools in Belize. shown on Belmopan Weekly. Thanks to everyone interviewed in addition to Marty O'Farrell who also provided video footage that was unfortunately never used.
Re: Working at Cara Blanca Pool
[Re: Marty]
#490859 05/14/1405:18 AM05/14/1405:18 AM
The Pools of Cara Blanca If ever there was a magical land, a mystical place, a spiritual pool, that begs - no demands - our respect and protection, it is The Pools of Cara Blanca. Sunken Mayan structures, fields of giant sloth fossils, huge veins of calcite crystal growing from limestone, springs which bubble sand, thousands of fish and associated life and underwater forests complete with a calcium carbonate fog of super saturated freshwater ... it is criminal to watch the lands to the south of the pools be cleared and to think your children will never have the opportunity to experience such exquisite and elegant natural beauty. So sad that such ethereal sites as this skeletal forest will soon no longer exist ... feast your eyes now while you still can.
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