GUE Divers | Chanb77's Weblog

No See For The Saw Mill

13 05 2013

Sunday, May 12th, 2013 ~

The air temperature had really dropped, going from 25C+ all week, to about 10C, with some serious winds! We took our chances, and went down to Guindon Park. We had thought about going out to the Power House, but when we pulled up, there were some serious white caps and flooding. I could just see my tendency to feed the fish, arise.

We decided to go and check out another entry, at Lakeview Heights, which also had waves and white caps, but we had the opportunity to see something new – An old saw mill, that had been around since the late 1800’s, before the first flooding of the St. Lawrence, in the early 1950’s.

Grist Mill
“The grist mill on the dam, ca. 1870
Owned by J.G. Snetsinger, successful business owner, who was responsible for many of Moulinette’s early enterprises.Courtesy: Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Historical Society.”

photo GristMill1870.jpg

Before gearing up, we headed back over to Guindon Park, to let our other friends know that we were going there, instead. With the rock ‘n’ roll waves, the visibility looked to be much better than from Guindon.

Back over, we went.

We brought our gear to the water…

The entry was pretty shallow, so we had to walk out a bit of a distance, to get fins on, and do gear checks.

Our destination was approximately the middle of the right half of the tree line. Our estimated time on the trigger, to get there, was about 30 minutes.

Once we went through our dive plan and did our gear checks, we were off. The water was a bit cloudy for the first few minutes, then opened up, nicely.

Giddyup!
Pic by Steve Blanchard

Short video of the wave action!

We headed SSW, and made it through two of our check points – early, even. When we got to what we thought was the area, we had a look around. There were spots where the current was absolutely insane, and our scooters were really working it, to make any headway. There were also spots where the current was absolutely non-existent, which was sort of nice, but we were hoping to do a little drifting!

I had the standard body with me, and was monitoring my burn time. It was getting close, and we still hadn’t found the saw mill. Oh, well… I guess we’ll just have to come back another day. I gave Steve the signal, and we started back (Eric was on the other side of Steve).

While we didn’t get to the saw mill, we did see quite a few tree stumps and bits of building foundations (rebar and wood), as well as a few pretty large fish. There were a few Sheepshead Carp, Bass, and a really large fish that I have never seen before. It looked a bit like a Yellow Perch, but was quite large. Same colouring. I will keep searching, to see if I can find out what it was.

Very cool place to dive!

Bottom Time: 74 minutes
Max. Depth: 70′
Water Temp.: 51F
Vis.: 30′, past initial shoreline muck

Us, after the dive. I swear, I thought we were going to be taken off to Kansas!

…and a Rainbow, for Mother’s Day!

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Tags: Bloggy Thing, Brockville, Chan's Bloggy Thing, Cornwall, DIR, DIR Ontario, Diving, Diving Goodness, Gavin, Gavin Scooter, GUE, GUE Divers, GUE Ontario, Lost Villages, Scooter, Scooter Dive, St. Lawrence, St. Lawrence River, Technical Diving
Categories : 2000 + 13

Clayton Clean-Up Dive!

6 05 2013

Saturday, May 4th, 2013 ~

Since we haven’t been to the US side of the River much, Steve and I decided to join some of the gang, and go down for the Clayton Dive Club clean-up dive! We arrived at the Port Dover Antique Boat Museum at around 9am, registered with the dive club, unloaded our gear… and went diving for garbage!

I caught Bob with his camera!

Lisa and Skip!

Steve, C-Mal, and Damian… Bad Boyz, Bad Boyz, What ya gonna do?

There were quite a few people joining in on the fun, and we were all concentrating on the area around the long dock. When Steve and I descended, we were greeting with quite a bit of silt, which was kind of fun, as we made our way around the dock. We managed to pick up quite a lot of garbage, including bottles, cans, pieces of metal, socks, potato sacks, plastic, and we almost got some of the metal that was embedded into the ground, but even with both of us pulling on it, we couldn’t get it out. There were a couple of shopping carts, too. We didn’t have a very long dive, but it was still fun to pitch in, and do our part to clean up!

Bottom Time: 41 mins.
Max. Depth: 7′
Water Temp.: 50F
Visibility: 0′ to 2′

I was really impressed, how the city joined in to really help the clean-up. There were some crew along the dock, pulling up any items that any of us found, putting them into wheel barrels, rolling over to a front end loader, and then putting it into a large dump truck. The town had also put together sandwiches, drinks, and the mayor even made probably the best choco chip cookies I have ever tasted!

Partial group shot!

From there, we made our way to Bob’s Hideaway, and Patty’s Place, which was also a lot of fun. Lots of laughter and Goodness! Thank you, Bob and C-Mal!

Dinner was at the Cedar Point Market, arranged by Bob. What an awesome place!

The outside tables were all done up for us, and even had masks, water guns, and snorkels laid out, for decoration.

We had a procession line to get our food, and everyone took most excellent care of us!

Bob, taking a group shot!

From there, we made a pit stop, where there were a couple of bevvies, some skee ball, and watched a bit of the hockey game!

Then… back to the homestead, where there was sausage and S’mores. Not together, of course!

Yet another excellent adventure, with the wonderful people of Clayton! We’ll be back!

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Tags: Bloggy Thing, Chan's Bloggy Thing, Clayton Dive Club, Clean-Up Dive, Diving Goodness, GUE, GUE Divers, St. Lawrence River
Categories : 2000 + 13

SOS Daryaw Mooring Moving Day!

6 05 2013

Sunday, May 5th, 2013 ~

We stayed in Cape Vincent Saturday night (thanks to Bob and Chris), then made our way back over the border, for Sunday morning charter. We were climbing aboard Tom Scott’s boat (Under Where? Charters), and were going to help moving the new mooring block on the Daryaw.

We all met in the parking lot, discussed the plan, and loaded up. Each team had a job to do, and almost everything went according to plan. 😉

Captain Ryan, at the helm.

There were 6 of us with scooters, so first, we had to locate the block (Steve’s and my job). Once we found it, Steve blew a bag to the surface, and we showed Team 2 where it was. Team 3 shot up a bag from the old mooring, so that Tom could tie the boat into it, while we worked with the mooring block. Another team attached the shackles to it, then some mighty big lift bags, and we were off to the races.

The boat was able to move the block within 10′ of the intended spot. Not bad, teams!

Bottom Time: 55 mins.
Max. Depth: 93′
Water Temp.: 46F

Some pics from the day!

After all of the teams surfaced, and all of the bags were picked up, we headed back to shore.

You can see the size of the lift bags, here…

My favourite dive buddy, and I. Thanks for a great day, Tom! 🙂

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Tags: Brockville, Diving, Diving Goodness, Gavin Scooter, GUE, GUE Divers, GUE Ontario, Save Ontario Shipwrecks, SOS, St. Lawrence, St. Lawrence River, Technical Diving
Categories : 2000 + 13

A Dip In The Shallow End

29 04 2013

Sunday, April 28th, 2013 ~

We weren’t sure where we felt like diving, so we decided on a place that Steve knew how to get to. Our goal was to hit the east side of Chimney Island across the way, head upstream around the south side of the island, then drift/scooter back around to our entry. The water wasn’t exactly tropical, so we wanted to keep our dive time to approximately an hour.

Chimney Island…

We got our gear out, and got ready to dive! We weren’t sure what was on the other side of the island, which we planned on having a look at, today!

We made it to the island pretty quickly, and along the way, there were some really neat contours of the river bed. A lot of really interesting rock formations. There really wasn’t much current in this area, and it was pretty shallow. Thank goodness there weren’t many boats in, yet. We were still keeping an ear out.

As we reached the other side of the island, we surfaced to see what was around us. There was a protrusion of rock, just west of us, that we decided to go and check out. There were a large number of seagulls chillin’ in the sunshine. They were a little surprised to see us. All I could think of was, “Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!” It was a pretty amusing sight.

As we made our way back around, the shallow water got even more shallow. There was just enough room for our bodies to move through the water, and we had to swing our scooters out to the side, so they wouldn’t break the surface. The water was warmer, since the sun was shining on us, and seeing each others’ shadows and reflections on the surface was a pretty amazing thing to see.

*Note to self* Not a place to be diving, when boats are in the water. 😉

Still, a pretty amazing dive!

Bottom Time: 1 hour, 1 minute (even though my bottom timer only registered 31 minutes)
Max. Depth: 11′ (Average Depth: 5′)
Water Temp.: 46F

Just the “tree” of us!

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Tags: Bloggy Thing, Brockville, Chan's Bloggy Thing, Diving, Diving Goodness, Gavin, Gavin Scooter, GUE, GUE Divers, GUE Ontario, Scooter, Scooter Dive, St. Lawrence, St. Lawrence River
Categories : 2000 + 13

SOS AGM, 2013 ~ Port Dover

15 04 2013

Saturday, April 13th, 2013 ~

After a long drive from Ottawa to Port Dover (about 6 hours, on the Friday night), I arrived…. almost… It seems that the bridge that I was trying to get across was closed for the night, and blocked off by police cruisers. Since there was a detour sign, I took the detour, only to be greeted by another officer, closing off the other side. I was pretty tired, and just wanted to sleep, so I walked up to the cruiser, to ask what I should do. She told me that I needed to go back around the way that I came (which was not exactly an easy task, at 11:15pm, after a bunch of twists and turns to get where I was), and ask the officer if I could go through.

So… I did… eventually… after a 5.5 km detour. I finally made it to the hotel, and they had left my room open for me (thanks for arranging that, Chris). After convincing myself that a little bug on my pillow was nothing more than just that (it really was nothing more than that), I crashed out…Zzzzzzz…..

I headed over to the Port Dover Harbour Museum, where I met up with a bunch of friends, and it was not long until we were “off to the races.” Chris Phinney opened up, followed by Ian Bell, giving us some of the history of the Port Dover Harbour Museum. He also manages the Museum.

Chris P…

Ian Bell…

There were a few prize breaks in between the speakers, which was fun… although, I didn’t win anything. Oh, well. 🙂

Bob Sherwood gave his presentation on the Vickery Project, too…

Then, Cris Kohl and Joan Forsberg gave a presentation on Shipwreck Tales Of The Great Lakes.

We then had a lunch break, where we checked out the museum (of course, we had some yummy sandwiches, too).

Warren was at the helm…

…while Krissy was keeping watch for intruders!

Rick Lymer is no stranger to this spot!

After our lunch break, we gave out some very deserving awards. Among them, was Cris Kohl, receiving the Marine Heritage Award – We caught him by surprise. Congratulations!

Then came the AGM part of the weekend, which was an interesting part of the day, and good to discuss items on the “menu,” with members from all SOS chapters.

After the meeting, Ian Bell came up again, and told us about the Shipwreck history of Port Dover and folklore, which was really neat to listen to. Ian had some really great stories. I really enjoyed hearing about the things that happened, and learned a lot about the town of Port Dover.

Capping off the day, were Cris Kohl and Joan Forsberg.

What a great day!

At dinner, of course, there was a little bit of shenaniganry going on. Dar and I had a couple of friends join us…

The Port Dover beach. You can see the lighthouse in the background, as well as the very murky water…

Sunday’s events were workshops, which I would have loved to have taken part in, but I opted to start the journey back home. There were a couple that I was especially interested in:

Primitive SkillsMooring Systems
Historic Artifact Identification

I did get a chance to walk around the pier on Sunday morning, which I am glad that I did!