Divng the Trumble

Diving the Trumble

I have been diving for many years. I started about 24 years ago and have pretty much done every type you can do here in Michigan and a bit in the Caribbean, Bonaire, Cozumel, Costa Rica, etc.
Here in Michigan diving varies a lot. The water is generally not very clear and is cold. Even in the summer, you get below the thermocline (about 20 ft) and it is cold. Wet suit cold. It is not big deal as we are used to it and prepare for it. As the weather gets colder in the fall, we usually switch to dry suits which are pretty warm.
I have done a bit of ice diving over the years. It can be fun but is a lot of work. The experience is something of a confidence builder and just beautiful but to do it right takes a bit of planning. You must have a partner and a safety diver etc. I did it alone one time, which was not very smart, which is another story. I do 95% of my diving alone but it should never be done under a foot of ice! :0( I think I have told that story before but I can not find it, if I saved it.
We also night dive on occasion, which is a ball! So quiet and a completely different world than diving during the day. My first one was during a blizzard and I was nervous as heck. Liked to have froze getting dressed and all the time I was looking at the black lake wondering if I were nuts! I have dove at night alone many times and it is a great experience.
With the Great Lakes surrounding us, there are many shipwrecks to dive on, which I used to do every summer. It is like a trip through history, swimming through those old wooden sailing ships, of which there are hundreds within a divers limit. Each dive is a story in itself.
When a person first dives it is usually just for the thrill of exploring. Even in my crowded part of the world, I know I have been places and seen things the very few have. Many times in a lake that is lined with homes, I still feel the adventure. There are drop-offs and sights that make your heart jump, especially in 2 ft visibility, that most don’t have a clue are there.
I dove for about 12 years before I ever picked up a metal detector. I always was a scrounger though. I loved to hunt bottles! I sure have found a bunch of them over the years. The lakes have always been a dumping ground. I hunted the local lakes for bottles the fishermen from the early parts of the 20th century had tossed while fishing. I have many old blob topped beer bottles, some rather rare. I have old gin bottles and Hutchen stoppered bottles. I like any corked bottle. I have found long lost boats and a motorcycle. Outboard motors and even an old pontoon boat. Ice shanties and relics from the old days before refrigerators when they cut the ice from the lakes during the winter and stored it under sawdust, to sell in the summer. I have a beautiful old ice saw, in perfect condition even to the wooden handle, that I found buried in the muck. On the same dive I found an old sign, “HOT DOGS 10 CENTS”! Now that was a while back!
As I set here writing this I have thought about a dozen potential story’s but I honestly have one in mind. It is about a type of relic hunt that I have done many times. It is a way of hunting that has not made me rich in treasure but has made me rich in memories and is sure a confidence builder.
The St Clair River flows into Lake St Clair which empties into the Detroit River and one down the lakes till it eventually empties into the St Lawrence River and the ocean. Every ship that has EVER shipped out of the upper Great Lakes has come down the St Clair River. From the Griffin which was the first European sailing ship and is laying in the bottom of one of the lakes, unfound to this day, to the greatest ore carrier of the modern day. They all came down the river and over a great dive site. A bit hairy but an adrenaline junkies heaven. J
Port Huron is where Lake Huron and the St Clair River meet. It is a big city and the boat traffic it heavy as can be expected with all the shipping. 1000 ft ore carriers pass every day. It is a boat watchers paradise. There are heavily loaded boats headed south and many empty freighters headed north to Lake Superior to get another load of ore. Pleasure boaters by the thousands use the waterway too.
The current is very swift here. It is swift and deep, about 70 or 80 ft I guess. The deepest I have been there was 76 ft at the nose of the Trumble (I will get to the Trumble J ) It is over powering to say the least. No man on the planet can swim against that current! You have do dive smart or stay out. I have dove there alone but it isn’t all that relaxing alone J Now there is a no-brainer!
The bottom of the Great Lakes have over 5000 wrecks of which relatively few have been found. The lakes are deep and huge. I have dove on ore carriers and wooden sailing ships. Many are now diving on deeper and deeper wrecks using modern mixed gasses. I have not done this and really don’t have the interest. It is a young mans game I guess and I have nothing to prove to anyone.
With all the traffic on the River it is no suprise that the bottom is littered with wrecks. Wrecks and almost every type of trash imaginable. Much of the trash is interesting as some is from the earliest days of white mans exploration of the Midwest. I have never found any Indian artifacts there but you can bet there are there under the sediment. I have heard of them found though.
Divers have been diving the area for quite a few years. I started in the late 60’s and sure wasn’t the first by a long shot. Right where the lake meets the river there is the Blue Water Bridge which connects the US with Canada. I don’t have a clue how wide the river is at this point but it is about the narrowest spot on the river. That is what makes it deep and fast.
Some time in the late 50’s or early 60’s an ore carrier went down just below the bridge on the American side. I guess it nosed up to shore before settling on bottom. The stern was angled down stream. These ships were so damn big that even though it was on bottom there, the decks were still above water line. I did not see this but was told.
It sat there for a while before they could refloat it. During this time the current was vastly diverted around the ship. I guess it was a matter of weeks if not months before it was refloated.
After the freighter was removed divers made a discovery. With the diverted current, much of the sediment was washed away. This sediment was mainly gravel in that area. This exposed two old wooden boats that had laid hidden from all memory for a long time. These boats were as they sunk with all tools and equipment still in the area. It must have been awesome.
They lay on the bottom in a row, angled toward the center of the river and downstream a bit. Someone did a bit of investigating and found that they had sunk sometime in the early part of the century. Their names were the Ben Hur and the Trumble. I can’t say for sure which was which but I think the Trumble is the deep one and still in the best shape.
It seems that one of them had sunk first, I don’t know which, and the other had been trying to salvage it but had met the same fate. I can not remember the whole story but am sure if a reader was interested he could research it I read the story about 20 years ago but don’t remember exactly what happened. Seems like when the salvage was going on another ship rammed the salvage ship and it went down but I am not sure.
These boats have been pretty well stripped and destroyed by now. Divers have torn hell out of them using endloaders and cables from shore to get the anchor chains. What the heck are you gonna do with a chain that has 100 lb. links? The Trumble which is the deeper one, I think, is in pretty good shape. It sets half buried in the bottom to this day. In fact the railing is only about 6 ft above the bottom which makes the deck about three ft above bottom of the river.
When I first dove the wrecks there were plenty of artifacts laying around the bottom. Old tools were common. Drills and hammers, I remember seeing an old vise I could not get loose without tools. On my next trip with tools I found it was already gone. There were many bottles which mostly were broken. The problem was the current. If you got an armload, you played hell getting them to shore. You needed all your hands and legs to just hold on in places and had to stick the finds in your suit or BC or just leave them! It is pretty extreme diving to say the least.
I will describe one of my dives for you. I hope I can do justice to the experience for you.
Now days, just below the Bridge, there is a beautiful new park where we can enter the river. There is an old Train station there where Thomas Edison would catch the train to Detroit or where ever he was going. He lived a short way from the river in Port Huron. There is a parking lot and a walkway along the river with 4 ft pipe railing between the walkway and river. The drop to the river varies but is usually about 5 ft or so, depending on the water level in the Great Lakes. Now these measurements are nothing but a guess because when I am making these dives I ain’t got no damn tape measure and sure am not thinking about measurements.
Between the walkway and the parking lot is a grass strip that is handy for getting into your gear. There is a lot of gear to get into. J
It never fails to happen, not matter how many times I dive the river. I pull up to the parking area and get out. I walk to the railing and look at the water. I never fail to think, “Holy crap!” What am I doing here? That water is awesome! It seems to be boiling and the small boats going up stream seem to be having a hard time making headway. The big freighters going by look menacing, which they can be! The water churns like a damn cauldron!
I have taken friends diving up there on occasion and it is always fun to watch there faces when they first get a look at the river. I can see what I looked like the first time and probably still do. “Are you SH***ing me?” is a common reaction!
Somewhere about here Macho has to kick in or you would never go in the damn water.
Something about divers. Divers get into the sport to prove something to themselves really. It is a scary hobby at first. You are doing things that are not natural and going places you just ain’ta spost to be a going. Every dive is an adventure and has its danger. Of course if you are trained , it is very safe but you don’t know that at first. I have had to talk to myself before more than one dive. I have to kick in the macho and not let it get to me. They are always much easier than you expect but your mind can really mess you up if you will let it. That damn river always has me talking to myself. Not as bad as at first but it is scary: 0)
Diving in our water is a hell of a lot different than diving in the warm clear water of the Caribbean, I will tell you! That is a piece of cake. Get those divemasters in my water and lets see how cocky they are. Most have never seen anything like the river, I will tell you!
When I dive the river with someone that never has I always have a set down and let them know what to expect. It is never the same but some things don’t change. I tell them that we go down on the shore and stay on the bottom. All your gear has to be checked before getting into the water as it is rough down there. I had a tank come off on one of my first drift dives. It sucks! I also tell them to never, NEVER, come up mid river. Those thousand food freighters will grind you to hamburger if you tangle with them! It is something you don’t fool with!
Our plan is to go to the wrecks and explore them as best we can and work ourselves to the bow of the Trumble. There at 76 ft we then let loose and do a drift, always angling to the American shore. This will take you to the shallow water and get you out of the shipping lanes.
We start digging our diving gear out of the truck. On this day I am diving with an old river diver, Brent. He is not old in years but old in experience in the river. It is just about the only place he dives and used to run river diving classes. I have not seen him for a couple years so don’t know if he still does.
I am going with him today as he knows the wrecks better than I do and was gonna be my guide into the wreckage. Places I had not been and for good damn reason, I might add.
Wreck diving can be dangerous for several reasons. You can get lost in many of them and that sucks if you run out of air. That happened to a guy on a wreck off Alpena on a deep dive. His buddy was on the outside of the wreck and he was on the inside looking out a porthole. It was a 150ft decompression dive. That means his buddy had to decompress on the way up to avoid the bends. They allowed enough air for that. Here he was, inside the wreck, lost and about out of air and time, his buddy was on the outside with the same problem. His buddy had to leave him or suffer the same fate. He drown.
I heard about that and layed in bed, more than once, thinking about what his last minutes had to be like. Horrible. What it must have been like seeing his buddy head up. The buddy could not go up and get more air as he would have probably gotten bent without the decompression stop which probably would have been up to 10 minutes or so.
His buddy has to remember, to this day, the horror of leaving him. That is what I mean by poor planning. Don’t enter a wreck without a line. Don’t go that deep without being aware of nitrogen narcoses, which was probably a factor at that depth. It gives me chills to think about it now.
I digress. J That is not a factor on this dive. We would not be going into this wreck as it was half in the gravel of the bottom and the up stream side of it was all torn to heck by the ice from the spring breakup and stupid divers. I had never been on that side of the wreck, which was the Trumble. I had always been satisfied to crawl on the lee side out of the current. It is an exciting dive but I wanted to hit the other side and really didn’t know how to get over there. You can not imagine the current that we have to contend with down there!
The first thing we do is tie off a dive flag to the railing. There is no way we can drag one with us but we always tie one off so the boaters are aware that divers are down. This is the law.
We haul all our gear out and arrange it on the grass. This way we can look it over to make sure we have everything before starting to don it. I usually carry about 30 lbs of weight in that current as it helps me stay in place. Well maybe sorta J I always carry a dive knife. Not to fight off the horrible sea-monsters but to be able to cut my way free of fishing line which is all over the place. Not much line on the wrecks but on the drift we usually ran into it in places. They used heavy line, fishing in the river and it is hell to get out of while fighting the current.
We start putting on our gear. Wet suits, weight belt, knife, BC with 80 cf tank. Then I waddled over to the guard railing. This thing is a two pipe railing and right on the edge of the walk and on the other side is a drop of abut 5 or 6 ft to the river. I am carrying my fins and mask. Holding onto the railing I slip the mask onto my head and start putting on the fins. This isn’t easy with all the gear on but it gets worse.
I have already defogged my mask so I slip it on my face and the fun begins. I gotta get my big arse over the rail and get ready for the big jump into that fast, boiling water. All this with my 2 ft long fins on. My buddy isn’t any help as he is in the same situation. Just before I start he checks to see my tank is turned on and I do the same for him. After a struggle I manage to get my arse over the rail and now I am looking down at a 5 ft drop into that wicked looking water. This is when your imagination is a working I will tell you.
The water is 15 or 20 ft at the wall and the thing I have to do is get a damn good grip on my regulator and with hand on mask to keep it from getting knocked off in entry, face up stream and do a giant stride entry into the river. Yah, Right! J I am talking to myself and going through everything I will have to do in the next two minutes or so. I take a couple test breaths and take the giant stride.
The thing you must do here is as soon as you hit the water you flip over and head down imediately! You gotta kick as hard as you can and keep trying to head upstream. You can not go up stream but it helps limit how far you are blown downstream as you reach for the bottom. On the way down you have to look for something to latch onto to hold you in one place. There is one heck of a lot of rubble on the bottom from 200 years of use. Cement slabs and a good thing to watch for.
Once I grab one of them I just hold on and try to get control of my breathing. That battle to the bottom is work! Many times the mask gets flooded a bit and you need to get situated. I take nice deep breaths and blow the water out of the mask. I check all my equiptment and try to relax. I have to stay here until Brent gets down. We would never get together if I was to just drift.
As I lay there facing upstream, looking up for Brent, I start relaxing. The really tough stuff is over now. I look to my right, which is toward mid channel, and the visibility is great! 30 ft or so which is fantastic. I have been down there with 1 ft visibility and you go adding that to the mix and it is an adrenelin junkies dream!
As I look toward mid channel I am looking at a flat smooth bottom. It is clay and slick. There are holes where stones have been washed out by the current, little golfball sized dents actually. This runs for about 30 or 40 ft but seems like a mile when you are crossing it. Beyond that it turns to an eerie blueblack. That is the drop. It drops down at 90 deg for about 25 ft. More than 90deg actually because it is undercut. The current has washed out a cave like undercut that runs the length of the drop. We had to get to the drop, slide over it and get into the undercut. That was our next objective.
I look up and here comes Brent! He is like a damn fish and is next to me in about 3 seconds. He smiles and gives me the thumbs up which I return. He nods to the drop and I give the thumbs up. He heads across and I follow.
The way you get across the flat is face up stream, flat on the bottom and kick your ever lovin’ arse off! As you are doing this you are trying to find purchase of the bottom with your hands. You cram your fingers into any little washed out stone hole you can and don’t stop kicking! You will be blown down stream but that is ok as long as you are slowly working yourself to the right and the drop. That damn drop is one spooky thing to be working yourself toward in itself. Man you are sucking air now! It is exhausting work but finally you get to the drop. You then slide over it, still facing up stream and drive yourself into the undercut. There Brent is waiting and a smiling.
The odd thing about the undercut is there is very little current in there. Never made sense to me as the current is what cut it in the first place. It is a great place to get yourself together, after the dang struggle of getting across the clay flat. You check your gear and slow your breathing and go over the next step. Lots of brain talking going on in that undercut, I will tell you!
The visibility is great as I said. We are setting in the cut and looking toward the wrecks. There is a lot of rubble from them, most from the Ben Hur actually. That is the first one we would be coming to. A person can hardly tell it was a boat by this time. It is a huge pile of planking and ribs. We would have to work our way through this and deeper to get to our goal, the Trumble, which was just a faint outline from our position in the undercut.
We can see a lot of fish on this day. Schools of walleye! Great eating. There are a lot of smallmouth bass and sheepheads. Schools of baitfish. Hell it would have been a great day if I went no farther but we had a ways to go yet. The bottom was covered with barrels and wreckage. Pilings and old tree trunks and trash of the years. It is a sight that few get to see and I was seeing it. On occasion I have made this dive alone and that is one thrill. Not all that smart but my buddy didn’t show up and what was I suppost to do? J
Lets see, where the heck was I? Oh ya, on the bottom of the St Clair River at about 40 ft or so, in the undercut.
Now this undercut was like a shallow cave. It only undercuts the bank about 3 or 4 ft deep and abut 6 ft high but for some reason there was very little current there. It is strange because we can set in this relatively calm spot and stick our hand out in the current. If you do it will drag you downstream! This undercut gave us the opportunity to collect our thoughts and ourselves. We are sorta setting on our knees, looking outward and making sure all our equipment is still secure from the mad flight across the clay shelf. Everything if fine. Mask clear of water and tight! Gotta be tight! Fins secure and also tight.
The current is such that if the mask is loose at all, it can be pulled off. Down there in that current it would mean a 80 dollar mask is history. That is not to mention trying to find my way to shore, half blind. If you look directly into the current, while holding onto something, your regulator will purge from the water hitting the purge button. Turn your head sideways and you can feel it trying to pull the mask off. Properly secured it is not a problem but sorta disconcerting for a new, river diver.
Like I said, I can see the wreckage of the Ben Hur clearly. It is just a huge pile of timbers and other wreckage. It is a loose lattice of this wreckage, reaching about 20 ft or so from the bottom. Beyond this is the bow of the Trumble. The Trumble is buried in the bottom, nose toward shore in about 50 ft or water or so. From my vantagepoint in the undercut the Trumble is sorta hazy, not sharply visible. Like a ghost. I have no idea how long the Trumble is but I would guess a hundred feet or so. Maybe a little more. I can not see the stern which is in the deepest part of the river or close to it.
Even with all the turmoil around you it is rather peaceful. There is little noise down there other than the sound of your breathing and the bubbles from the regulator. There is also the constant far off noise of the pleasure boat traffic. It is a high pitched whine of their props. You can hear them pass, some distance above you. They are nothing like the sound of the big freighters. They are entirely something different. Their screws make a
schuit-schuit-schuit-schuit sound. About two schuit’s a second. You can hear them coming and the sound building until you can not ignore it. It sounds like some huge knife slashing the water and I guess that is what it is. In the shallower places, down river where we dig old pontil medicine bottles they are damn right un-ignorable!! Up here in the deep water they are not as bad but a concern. It is also one heck of an incentive to not surface mid-channel!
Since Brent is leading this dive I look at him and nod that I am ready to continue. With a return nod he started kicking for the nearest Ben Hur wreckage which was about 10 ft away, with me following. We always faced upstream while trying to negotiate our way across current. It is the only way to do it. Any other way you are headed for Lake Erie in a heartbeat. We kick as hard as we can with both arms outstretched to grab any part of the wreckage we can get out hands on. When we do grab something we still can not stop kicking as we are now getting the full force of the water. We are out there flapping like a damn flag! There are times like this that a person wonders if this is the smartest thing he has ever done! J
What we then have to do is go hand over hand across the wreckage, crabbing sideways, and a kicking, always trying to get in the lee of something so we can get a bit of a rest. I am guessing now as I never had no damn tape measure at this time but it is about a hundred feet or so from the undercut to the Trumble. This hundred feet is a battle for sure. I get to gasping for air and have a mouth hold on the regulator you could not believe. I have seen guys chew right through their regulator mouthpieces on these dives. Gotta watch that as it is useful J
Sometimes it is really tough. I have done it with 2 ft visibility and a body wonders the sense of it. Hell you can not see anything at those times! It is just a macho thing and ego thing that most that most of us men have to contend with all our lives! It is a wonder we live to breed!
As I worked my way across this wreckage I could not help but admire the wonder at what I was seeing. Ahead of me, upstream, I could see the dropoff running out of sight. The wreckage was in front and below me. It was all strung out behind me, downstream, but I was not a lookin’ at the time As I said it was a loose lattice of piled timbers, not unlike the kids game, Pick-up-sticks! I could see fish all over the place. Walleye, bass, bream. Schools of them. On these dives I have seen huge schools of smelt, in season. I even saw a huge stergeon on one dive! There are pilings and barrels. Barrels probably lost from ships and dumped from shore, over the many years of river use. Big slabs of cement and old tree trunks.
Finally we get to the bow of the Trumble. Like I said, it is setting keel down in the sediment. There is about 6 ft of it above the bottom of which three is hull and the other three is wooden railing. It is broad side to the current so there is a nice eddy along the full length of it on the down stream side. We have to lay tight to the bottom to stay out of the terrible current. It is at its worse where we now were. It is funny but you can not see it but it is sure there. We are probably 50 ft deep here and can look up at the surface, high above, with no hint of the movement of the water. It is neat seeing the occasional pleasure boat go by.
It is a great place to catch your breath. It seems a lot of this kind of diving is catching your breath. It is beautiful setting on the bottom, in the lee of the Trumble, looking downstream. It is like looking at an aquarium. Nice clear water. Fish all over the place. It amazes me how those fish can be in that current and hold their postitions. I have seen sturgeons do it too. There must be micro eddy’s that we can not see that they set in.
The plan is to go to the upstream side of the wreck. How the hell we were gonna do that I had not a clue but that is why Brent was there. I had been down here a number of times but never upstream of the wreck. I could not imagine how we were gonna get there either!
Brent and I were setting next to eachother taking in the scene. He taps me on the shoulder and I look at him. He points upstream with his thumb and I give him the thumbs up with more bravado than a totally sane person would be displaying at such a time.
He nods and turns around and reaches up and grabs the top railing. This is no easy feat as that was mid stream. He just let his body ralax and was yanked off the bottom and out likd a damn flag. He was a kicking and pulling on the railing and finally worked himself into the current and over the rail. I could not see exactly how he did it from my vantage point but I figured if that scrawny little sucker could do it, so could I! Right! L
I swung around facing up river and grabed for for the rail and latched on with a death grip. I relaxed my body and was flung out into the current. It was a butch I will tell you. There is a bit more bulk to my body than Brents and that current made me wish I was Twiggy, for crying out loud! I was a kicking and pulling as hard as I could. I could feel the water trying to pull my fins off. They must have been a little looser than they should have been. I got my chest to the rail and was trying to work myself over an inch at a time. Damn! This was scary! I looked to my right and Brent was setting there behind a bulkhead relaxing and grinning. I was doing my best to get over that rail, had gotten to my weightbelt when Brent reached out and shoved my head down toward the deck! That did it. The pressure was now against my back and now was my friend. I bent at the waste, over the rail and layed there like a hog in heat, trying to relax a bit. Gasping for air again, I might add.
I was then able to work the rest of my body over the rail and then, of course, I was shoved against the upstream side of the rail. Crap! I just started working myself toward Brent all relaxed behind the bulkhead. Man my heart was a thumping like a hummingbirds arse!
I just knowed that had to be the worse of the day. What else could happen. Well, let us see. It is so decieving looking out into the water from a sheltered area like this. It all looks at peace and calm. I once again got my breathing and mind under control and we were off again.
Brent grabbed the edge of the protecting bulkhead and going upstream, left my sight. It is a hell of a lot easier if I can see what he does and then follow. This was not the case here. I gave him a minute and followed out and around the bulkhead into the current. It was not as bad as getting over the rail but what I saw, supprised me. On that side of the boat it was a mess. Almost as bad as the Ben Hur. Broken timbers and planking. Much of the ribs were sticking straight up. We started working our way around this junk exploring.
Let me tell you right now. The purpose of this dive was to try to find some relics. Old bottles or tools or whatever. I am here to testify that if there was a damn bucket of dabloons laying there I would not have seen it. I was involved in keeping my arse alive about then. I went through the motions but my mind was not really not on relics! At least I had been through the worse and the rest was a piece of cake! Right? RightL
With all that had been going on I had not noticed the far off “schuit-schuit-schuit-schuit”! I did notice it when it started getting louder and louder. The current started getting stronger and much more violent. I looked at Brent and he grinned. Right in front of me was a huge piling or rib of the wreck or something. Brent shoved me against it and motioned for me to wrap my arms around it. He did likewise to a hube beam next to him. We were standing in the lee of these beams so had a bit of an eddy. I was not sure what was going on but I sure the hell could hear those screws now!
Brent looked up and so did I. I could not believe what I saw. It was a freighter going directly over our heads. That damn thing had to be 18,000 ft long and a million tons I was thinking. You will probably say I was exagerating a mite but you weren’t standing next to me at the time. It was probably between 700 and a thousand foot freighter. I didn’t have no damn tape measure with me then eigher so it looked 18,000 ft!!
Well we were about 50-55 ft deep I guess and those freighters draw about 20ft when full. This I have been told as I ain’t no damn authority on ships. J That means there was about 30 ft between the two of us and I was a huggn’ that bad-boy beam with all I had. I could see the whole damn ship from bow to screws as it passed over. It looked like “Star Wars” for crying out loud. The bottom of that ship is huge from that vantage point. It looked like it was only a couple feet away! I was a grinning at Brent and he was a grinning at me and we was a holding on. I damn near chewed the mouthpiece in two on the regulator on that day, I will tell you. Scared the crap out of me! I was a grinnin’ though. Aint the male ego a wonderful thing? The current was terrible! It was like a washing machine and it was all I could do to hang on.
The ship soon passed as it was going down stream and the current calmed to a torrent. It seemed a piece of cake now though. Brent nodded downstream and I nodded my agreement. We just let loose and drifted to the rail and over into the eddy. What an experience!
As we sat in the lee of the Trumble and relaxed, I was looking forward to the next part. We were going to do a drift dive off the end of the wreck. If I remember right, the water there was 67 ft deep.
With a drift dive all you do is flow with the current and it is a ball. It is very relaxing and a bit like flying. I had done it quite a few times nearer shore but never this deep and in the shipping channel.
The plan was to just slip into the current and head downstream, always angling toward the American shore, which would be to the west or right. This would have us near shore when the air gave out, 500 lbs. Although the dive had not been a long one we had used a lot of air by that time. We start with 3000lbs and were down to probably 1200to 1400 by this time. I really can not remember what the heck we had.
The rest of the dive would not use as much as we would not be working all that much. I wish I had the skill with the writing thing to describe the bottom as we were seeing it. Like I have said, the bottom is littered with the trash of the centuries. There are logs and pilings rammed in the bottom. A lot of wreckage from the Ben Hur and Trumble and also other ships that have gone down. Steel barrels and cement. Old smaller boats and barges that have not met the match of the river. In between the rubble are stretches of gravel or clay. Sometime for quite a way.
Like I have said, the visibility is great on this day. You do a drift on a poor visibility day and you risk the chance of colliding with the rubble as you are moving too fast to avoid it if you don’t see if in time. I have sure done that on occasion.
We worked our way down to the stern of the Trumble. I think it is the stern. I always thought of to be the stern but maybe it was the bow, With half the ship buried it is hard to tell. Most of the boat has only about 6 ft showing but as you go deeper, more is exposed. We get to the end and there is lots of room as it must be 10 or 12 ft to the top of the railing. I look beyond the end of the boat and it still goes deeper. Sorta black like. Ominous! I guess I should mention that the water, on a clear day, has a pale blue tint to it. Very pretty. You see no colors down there as the water filters out colors. At 10 ft the reds start going and by thirty feet everything is gray-blue.
We do one last check on the equipment and with a nod, Brent is into the current and headed downstream. I let him get out about 30 ft or so, which was only a couple seconds, and follow. The first thing I do is adjust the air in my BC so I am pretty much neutral buoyancy. You don’t need to be fighting buoyancy down there. This is a thing an experienced diver does without thinking. I like to sorta drift sideways with my head pointed to shore. I can look downstream that way and with an easy steady kick, work shoreward. I checked my air and saw I had plenty.
I like to sorta lay on my right side a bit so that I can hang my right hand down. This way I can control my speed a bit and if I see something I want to look at I am ready to grab it. I can do a nice drift and still be going slower than the current this way as I normally just lightly grab stuff and immediately let go, sorta just snag it, which slows you without much work.
It s a ball. You can dive into the eddy behind wreckage and barrels and just set there watching the life around you. Lots of life as I have mentioned. Then just kick off and you are off again. I pretty much lost track of Brent by this time but it is not a problem as we have both done this many times and were confident we could control things.
On my first river dive, many years ago, we were doing a drift. We had gone in downstream from where we were now. I was all excited and a bit scared too if I were to admit the truth. That damn river can be a bit intimidating down there too. We went in and off we went. My partner was a dive shop owner that had taught me. We were sailing along and I was having a ball. Spud, my dive buddy watched me closely for a while but relaxed when he saw I was doing ok. I felt a hard pulling at my regulator.What the hell? I says to myself. I looked around and could not see anyone there. It came again and liked to have yanked the regulator out of my mouth. Now that would have sucked as we were probably in 30 ft of fast moving water and I was a rookie. Since I was headed downstream. I spun around and looked to see what the heck was wrong. I got a glimpse of my tank and rookie or not, I knew I should not have been able to see my tank there.
I found what had happened was my tank had come loose of its holder on the back of my BC and was bobbin in the current. Man I was in a bit of a jam. I looked downstream and saw an old hulk of a barge setting on the bottom. I grabbed my tank and lunged for the barge. I have a tooth grip on the mouthpiece that would never break free if I could help it!
On the wreck of a barge there were some kind of threaded rods sticking up for about two feet in places. Just a rod, about ½ or ¾ of an inch with a nut on the end. I grabbed one of them and wrapped my legs around it in the setting position. The current was a bit of a drag but didn’t stand a chance against a scared diver J Once I was comfortable I unbuckled my BC and worked it around me to my chest so I could see what the hell had happened. It was then simple to slide the tank back into its clamp, adjust the clamp so it would not happen again and then work it back on my back. Well setting here telling it is was simple but it was a struggle down there. I never let that regulator out of my mouth for a second. I didn’t know it but Spud had been watching the whole thing and wanted to see how I handled it. I guess he was satisfied as he smiled and gave me the ok signal. He never spent much time watching me after that. There were times that someone should have! HAA
We normally see a lot of fishing tackle down there. Lots of lures and occasionally a rod and reel. You might as well forget about the rod and reel unless it is a pretty good one as it is tough enough down there without dragging one of those things around. If I see the lures soon enough I will try to get them. It is funny because when you are drifting it is easy to forget the current as you are not fighting it but when you latch onto something you are reminded in a hurry. You are spun around and are flapping like a flag in an instant.
Eventually because of the air, we just have to leave the water. A good diver always knows how much air he has. It becomes second nature to look at the guage. Out of over 700 dives I only ran out one time. That sucks.
We eventually get close to shore and work ourselves to the wall. There are ladders along it where we can climb out but it is tough with all that gear.. I usually try to drift beyond the wall and climb out over the rocks there. It makes a long walk with all our gear but it is easier that climbing that damn ladder!
All in all it was a great dive. I will never forget it. I have never been on the current side of the Trumble since but I did it once and got a memory of it.
I used to dive the river a lot for bottles and lures. Most of my diving now days is metal detecting and I sure the heck am not gonna take a detector down there.
I hope some of you got a kick out of my efforts to tell a story. I find it fun as I go over something that I had not thought about for a long time. I get to relive it.