On the Road to Smoo Cave

An amazingly good day, especially for February.  We headed West.  We were aiming for Smoo Cave but would be content to be out in the sunshine.  The car was warm and the light so clear that the Bens stood out sharply on the horizon.

Smoo Cave --the name, like so many place names--reflects the different folks who have lived here.  Smoo is derived from the Norse name for Cave.  But the doubleness of Smoo is compounded by the fact that, like me, it is a hybrid.  From inside the first chamber, you look out on the sea, which has shaped (and continues to shape) the opening.

The interior of the cave, by contrast, is shaped by the fresh water running over a spine of limestone.  For those of you who may not have studied the geology of Southern Indiana or wandered through the caves around Bloomington, Indiana, this limestone cave with sinkholes (swallow holes so the displays told me), felt like home to me. 

The third chamber is visible only by boat, which on our season-jumping visit was not yet in operation.

I lingered in the cavern after the other visitors (another hardy couple stopped by briefly) hd gone on in the hopes of catching a bird in flight acrtoss the mouth of the cavern.  This fulmar obliged me.  Fulmars are best enjoyed at a distance.  They can be aggressive and they have a habit of throwing up smelly bits on transgressors--kind of aerial skunks--in keeping with the hybridizing motif.