It can be spooky down there

Royal's 20th Century Tales
Sometimes it is SPOOKY down there!!
Posted By: Royal (198.208.223.35)
Date: Thursday, 25 July 2002, at 11:23 a.m.
Spooky stuff. I have mentioned Cass Lake before in stories. It is the one we lifted the motorcycle in. It is a big lake and a deep one for this area. Over a hundred feet in 5 different areas.
I grew up in a little town on the east shore and have heard spooky stories about the lake all my life. Giant turtles, underwater caves and drowning victims that were never found. I know a guy that was run down by a boat and killed in the swimming area that I have found over a thousand keepers in.
About 10 years ago a guy jumped out of a speeding boat, on a lark, and was never found. He is still down there somewhere.
The lake is sometimes fairly clear and at others 1 ft visibility would be something wished for.
Even though I know that much of the rumors are false, the stories are still in the back of my head when I dive there. Every time I dive out there they are with me. It makes the diving a little exciting sometimes, especially since most of my diving is done alone. The days on lousy visibility have the imagination working overtime, on occasion.
I was bottle hunting on a drop-off one calm, sunny day. I was alone and It must have been a week day as their was very little boat traffic. I was working the drop-off I have mentioned before. The water goes from about 3 ft to 35 ft on a 70-degree angle. Pretty sharp drop. My visibility was about a foot or so but since bottle hunting is pretty much done by feel I didn’t mind. I would just swim parallel to the drop and with my hands in the sediment, feel for bottles. I would pull them out and check for embossing and cork top. If it had either or both I would stick them in my bag, if not I would jam them in the bottom, neck down, so I would not have to dig them again.
I was just working myself along and daydreaming, as a person tends to do when there is nothing to look at. I had found a couple bottles and it was peaceful down there.
I felt a light tug at my left fin, the one on the downhill side. I didn’t pay in any mind, I figured I had snagged a stick or something. Then it came again, a bit harder. Damn! I wondered if I had a stick hung up in the fin vent. I sorta just kicked with the other fin in an unconscious way, still working the bottom. My attention was starting to leave the bottle hunting now and the imagination was a kicking it! I kicked again and sorta spun around and could dimly see my fin, but no stick. The bottom here was all fairly solid sand, all the way to the bottom of the drop where the silt was thicker. Damn I thought! I gave a double kick and moved out of the area a bit. Then I started hunting again but my mind was not wandering any more. It was sorta spooking me a little.
I went a little farther and Jerk-jerk-jerk again. They weren’t hard but enough to get my attention and I knew I damn well wasn’t imagining it. That did it! I decided my buddy had come out and was messing with me. I was diving alone and sure didn’t expect him to be coming out, he didn’t even have a boat, but I was hoping that was the explanation. I would kick his arse if it was him
I got up in the shallow water and stood up. I looked all over the place and nobody was around. No diver, no dive flag and no bubbles! Was me imagination getting the best of me? Did I really feel the pull at my fin? I looked the fin over and did not see any bite marks or scrapes. Nothing!
I said to hell with it I was going back down. I was not gonna let no damn imagination drive me out of the water! I went a ways and nothing happened. Aaaaaah! I could now relax. Right! I was a bit tense now and not paying much attention to the damn bottle hunting. Jerk-jerk-tug! Again it came and I was out of there. Hell with it! I was up that drop and into the shallows in record time. I hauled myself to the boat and almost lept into it, hooka and all. Well I had to drag the hooka over but I was out of the water!
I hauled the hooka out of the water and cranked up the 85hp motor and got to hell out of there. I made another dive, in a small bay, on the other side of the lake. The water was clearer there but my heart was not in it.
I have no idea what the heck had been messing with me but it won!
I was diving another time on the east shore of the same lake, with like conditions. I could see a foot or so on the flat, but bottle hunting, that was not a problem. I was alone this time too, as I usually am. The drop is similar to the other one but it broke to about 45 ft at an 35 degree angle or so. The top of the drop was in about 10 ft of water. I had been working the shallow flats when I decided to go down the drop a ways and work parallell to the dropoff as I had in the other place.
Like I said, I could not see very well. I started slowly down the drop, looking at the bottom for bottles. It was all sand here too.
It was getting pretty dark as I got deeper. This is normal on a cloudy day with poor visibility. I got down a ways when I got a funny feeling, sorta like someone was looking at me. Not exactly that but my skin sorta crawled. I stopped and looked around. I couldn’t see much but it looked like a stick or something to my left. Pretty dim down there. I turned my head to the right and I saw something there too.
I was laying on the bottom with my head down at the 35 degree angle. With a mask on you sorta have tunnel vision. I lay on the bottom and looked left and right, wondering what the hell was spooking me. I then looked up and almost There were tree limbs above me and I could see them very nicely, thankshat! you! They were siloetted against the light at the surface. Looked like a damn octopus or some damn thing, and I was right down in the middle of the damn thing!
This tree must have been down there for a hundred damn years and I swam right into the middle of it, not having a clue that I was. Its trunk was in the deep water and I had come into the top.
I bit down on that regulator and grunted out some mighty non-Christian things. I was trying not to panic but I sure wanted to. I started backing out the way I came in and that took some doing. I must have had a hand guiding me into that mess, a hand that had a weird sense of humor. I would have had a heck of a time if I had been using my hooka but on this day, I was on tanks.
I backed out of there and went uup the drop and did the rest of my hunting up there, that day.
A few day later I was out in the same place with my dive buddy. The water was much clearer that day. I told him I wanted to see that tree again but I wanted to come in from the side.We went down the drop and swung a right. In a little bit we could see it clearly. Funny but when I could see it it was not nearly so scary. It was a big tree and like I said, it had been down there for years. Fishing line and such all over it.
There have been other such instances during my 700-800 dives and I will relate them too as they come to me and if there is any interest.
It can be an exciting hobby :0)