Raising the Motorcycle

Raising the Motorcycle


I live in Oakland County, Michigan. The largest lake in the county and also the most popular is Cass Lake. This lake is around 1200 to 1200 acres and it is fairly deep. There are 9 holes in it over 90 ft and of these, 5 are over 100. The deepest by the chart is 123 or so. There are sand bars and underwater hills, that I call sunken islands in various places on the lake. Some of these are on the edges of the depths. Visibility is usually pretty good but goes to nothing at about 55 ft in most places.
The bottom is hard sand, beautiful for the beaches that surround the lake. It is almost one continuous beach, all around the lake. A diver drops down the drop and the bottom is all silt. Deep silt in places.
The lake has some of the best small mouth bass fishing in the whole area. I have seen huge bass on many of my dives. Bass and walleyes. The bass will follow you all over the place like a damn dog. When I start seeing bass, I know I am nearing a weed bed.
That is the place to fish for these lunkers. The weed beds. The problem is they are hard to find in this lake. Weeds ring most lakes but Cass is different. If a person doesn't know the lake he will do well to find more than a hand full of them. Some are not much bigger than a car and will hold a lot of fish.
I was born in Keego Harbor, on the east shore of the lake. I pretty much know the bottom of the lake from years of fishing it and years of diving there. I can pretty much go directly to the weed beds. On some days it is a chore for even me to find them, they are so small and wave action will hide them.
I have hunted bottles in Cass Lake for years. I have found a lot of old blob topped beer bottles. They are usually embossed with the brewery's name and city. Before the prohibition, almost every town big enough to have a brewery, had one.
The place to find them is to go where the fishermen fished. It was the same a hundred years ago as now. The weed beds. I hunt for bottles with scuba gear. I will go to the bottom and reach into the silt with both hands and slowly searching by feel, for the bottles, as I move forward. There are a lot of bottles down there. When I find one I will look at the neck for a blob top and then feel for embossing. If it has either, I pop it in my mesh goodie bag. I have found old fishing tackle and one heck of a bunch of bottles this way.
Because of the popularity of the lake and the total lack of any IQ test for boaters and those arrogant pissants that ride the jet skis, it is too dangerous to dive the lake during the summer. I normally hit it soon after ice out and dive until late fall. It was not that way 25 years ago when I first started diving the lake but is now.
One day I decided to go out there and do a little searching. I loaded my boat with the diving gear and headed for the lake. This was to be a solo dive, as most of mine are. On solo dives I generally stay shallower than 40 ft and the fact that I was using my hooka also tends to keep me in the shallower water.
On of my favorite places is the dropoff along the south shore. This drop goes from about 3 ft to 25 at a 75 degree angle. The bottom is all hard sand, in the shallows and the drop is too steep to hold any sediment. When the droop hits the deeper bottom there is a build up of silt but only 6 inches or so, most places. People would fish this drop and toss their bottles. Since they could not hang on the drop, they would just roll down to the bottom. There over the years they would accumulate. That was easy picking when I first started hunting there. I would fill my bag before going home. There are a bunch of modern bottles there too but most are, or were, older ones. The visibility is usually pretty good over there too.
After diving along the drop for a while, I can't remember how long I was there, I decided to go check out a sunken island I had not spent much time on in the past.
This island, and another just to the east of it, was a great place to fish. Very few know about them as the weed beds are only bathtub size and almost impossible to see from the surface. I had been down on the before so knew that old bottles were to be found. The tops of the islands were under about 8 ft of water and they sat in about 35 ft of water. This made it a nice easy dive. I would just anchor my boat on the top and drop over the side and I was ready to start hunting.
The top of these islands are generally flat and pretty hard with a thin layer of moss like plants. They aren't much over an inch or so thick. I like to scan this area as if there is a bottle laying under this stuff the lump is easy to see. Many times there will be old anchors laying around too. I just pull the bottles out and check them out and it they are not keepers I just stick them back in the bottom, neck first so I don't dig them again.
On this dive I headed for the weed bed and swam down the drop-off to about 35 ft of depth. The bottom here has at least a foot of silt over the harder bottom. It was a fairly clear day and I could see about 20 ft down there. This is damn good for these inland lakes.
I started my search at this depth, working myself in a back and forth pattern, working myself up toward the weeds. The fishermen would just anchor off the weedbeds, is seems, and toss their bottles when empty.
I found some bottles but I can't remember exactly what. When I got bored with that I dropped down the drop and headed out a little farther on the flat, just to explore a bit. You never know what the heck you might find. I have found motors and boats, fishing shanties and pontoon boats. Hell you never knew what the heck you would find. It is fun to just explore like that and a little creepy at times, especially when the visibility is poor which was not the case on this day. I swam right into a damn shanty hole one time. I only had about 4 inches visibility at the time-----don't ask me what the hell I was diving at 30 ft with that kind of visibility, along for either L----! The thing was laying on its side and I blundered into the damn thing. That thing spooked me a bit. All I could see is a big black shadow and then I was in it. Geeehs!
Anyway, I digress, on this dive it was not the case. Visibility was as good as it gets in our lakes as a rule and I was just a crawling along the bottom, digging for whatever with my hands. Something was coming into view in the distance and I was unconsciously looking at as a person is want to do when there is little to see. I couldn't tell what the heck it was but it was sticking up about 3 ft on the flat empty landscape. I got curious eventually and swam over that way. We find lawn chairs and coolers out there on occasion and I half expected that to be the case now. I was still working my hands in the sediment of the bottom all this time and trying to lock my eyes on the thing.
As I neared it what I saw didn't make sense at first. It looked like a bike but how could that be. As I got closer I saw it was a motorcycle and it was laying upside down in the sediment. The wheels were sticking straight up to the surface, with the seat and gas tank out of sight in the silt. I wiped some of the sediment off it with my hand and heck, the thing didn't look all that old! I didn't have the equipment to raise it on this day but figured I would come back for it, better prepared.
One thing I did have to know. Where the hell was I? I knew where the knoll was but I had been wandering for quite a while and had not been paying attention to my compass. It is easy to get screwed up down there and I could easily be on the opposite side of the knoll than I had started. I decided to go up and mark in my mind, where the bike was.
I looked up at the surface and listened. I had no intention of coming up when a speedboat was around. You can hear the high pitch scream of their props for quite a distance. There are also a bunch of sailboats that use the lake and I almost came up under one of them a couple year before. Powerboats are suppose to stay 200 ft from my dive flag but many boaters are morons and have not a clue what it is. I have learned to look and listen before surfacing.
Everything was clear so I headed up. As I hit the surface I inflated my BC, which is the flotation device we all wear around out necks. I could relax now and eyeball the shore for landmarks. I was quite a ways from shore but was on the west side of the little underwater knoll. That's good! I lined myself up on a big tree on shore and had an idea I could find it again. I knew my depth and had enough information now. I then dumped the air from the BC and headed back down.
I wanted to get an idea of its condition before I spent the effort to recover it. It was a 350 Honda dirt bike. I figured some damn fool had been racing it across the lake, on the ice and had gone through. It happens and the rider seldom is doing much marking of locations as he is freezing his arse off in the half-frozen lake. I can't imagine why he did not get one of us divers to go down and recover it though useless he had drown of course. It happens.
I could not see the bike very well by this time as I had really stirred it up by now. Heck it looked good to me so I would bring it up on another day.
The next day at work I looked up an old diving buddy, Bob Savage. He had been diving for years and I figured he would be a good one to help lift the thing. We decided to do it the next weekend. In the meantime I would get the things together for the lift.
My aunt had an old pontoon boat moored on the lake which would be perfect for the lift, we figured. Nice and stable and a big deck to put the thing on for the ride to shore. There are various ways of doing the lift and they all involved tying a lift bag of some sort off to the target and filling it with air. Some of these lift bags can lift pretty heavy loads, in fact a friend of mine lifted an airplane from the bottom of this same lake with three of them. That is a story in itself! J These bags are pretty expensive and I didn't have one big enough. I figured we could just use a big plastic garbage can.
On Saturday morning Bob and I met at the dock for the dive. We loaded our equipment on the pontoon boat. Boy are they nice to dive from! We did our double check of the gear and shoved off from the dock.
It wasn't but a 10 minute run to the site. It was about eight am and there were very few boats on the lake, which is the way we wanted it. We would be anchoring close to the target but I have very little respect for boaters. Experience has made me this way L
We motored across the lake and found the underwater knoll. I positioned the boat in the area I figured the bike was laying. I knew I would be fairly close but could not pinpoint it. Good enough for me! J We geared up and prepared for the dive. We were both using tanks this day. Bob kept looking sideways at the garbage can then at me but didn't say much. I don't think he trusted my idea. Hell he should have been with me the first time I lifted a boat and he would have been scared! I did that one alone!
I told him I would go down and see if I could find it and when I did I would tie a float on it. It is just a little bobber like thing that floated on the surface. This is what I did. I dropped into the water, next to the boat and after adjusting my mask and regulator, dumped the air from my BC and started down in a controlled descent. Since it is only 35 ft this didn't take long. I landed feet first in the silt and just stood there, looking out in the distance. The visibility was still good. I saw nothing but mud flat but started a turn to my left. I turned a ways and damn near stumbled over the damn thing. I almost landed on it. I was not looking down on descent and almost landed on it.
I looked up and was staring at the bottom of the pontoon boat. This was not good, I wanted to come up next to it, not under the damn thing. I tied off the marker and let it float to the surface. I then backed off a bit and followed it up.
When I got to the surface I filled the BC and laid back and relaxed. I shoved the mask back and looked up at Bob. He said, "What's the matter? Can't you find it?" with a smug smile on his face. I told him I had miscalculated a foot and a half. He asked where the marker was and I told the boy it was under the boat. I apologized to him for missing my mark and asked him to lift anchor and back up about 10 ft and reset it. Well it seemed the boy didn't believe me. HA! Well he did as I asked and said I was just lucky. I told him if I was really lucky I would have a dive buddy that respected my word! Well I have known him for a long time and I don't guess I have ever given him any reason to trust me.
He tossed the garbage can with about 10 ft of rope tied off to one hande, to me. I grabbed the rope and tipped it so it would fill with water. He was soon in the water and next to me, adjusting his dive gear. We were both ready and looking at each other nodded. We both, with our left hands, lifted our BC dump hoses and started venting air. Slowly we started dropping to the bottom with me still holding onto the can.
The water was still fairly clear but that was about to change. There had to be at least a foot of very fine silt covering the bottom and the motorcycle was in it quite a ways. Just moving around on the bottom was stirring it up pretty badly and we were trying to be careful. It wouldn't be long before there would be zero visibility.
As I said before, the motorcycle was laying on its back with the front and rear wheels pointing directly to the surface, 35 ft above. I wrestled the car around and set it, bottom up, between the tires. I held it there while Bob threaded the rope through one tire and then the other. Then he tied it to the other handle of the plastic garbage can. We were all set now! J Piece of cake! HA
Holding the can inverted I took my regulator out of my mouth and reached up inside of the can with it in my hand. I then pushed the purge button on the regulator. This let it free flow into the can and the air displaced the water. It stabilized itself and started pulling on the ropes as it began pulling to the surface. I had to pull my had our and take a pull on the regulator as I needed air more than the garbage can. Bob got on the other side and started doing the same thing.
There is an enormous amount of lift generated by a garbage can of air. I don't know how much but plenty for the job at hand, I figured.
Pretty soon we had that can a straining at the ropes. I looked up into the open maw of the can and saw that we had it full and it still was not lifting the damn motorcycle! What's up with that, I'ma thinking? I looked at Bob and he just shrugged. I looked at the surface and we had a clear shot if it would start a moving.
I looked at the bike and saw how it was in the mud. There had to be a bit of suction there but not that much I thought. I grabbed my side and started a rocking it to break it loose. Bob saw me and my intention and jumped in to help. We were a string it up now, I am here to tell you!! That garbage can was just a doing its best to break that thing free!
Finally I felt it start to lift. Bob and I looked at each other and smiled. We would slowly take it up to the surface now. Slowly my arse! That bad boy took off like a damn shot out of a gun. I went with it for a short way but let it go in fear of getting an embolism from rising too fast. That can kill a diver in a hurry. Bob saw me let go and did the same. I looked up and that thing looked like a damn rocket launch I once saw at the cape. It was a going and the expanding bubbles were shooting out from under the lip of the can. To add to the sight, there was a black cloud of mud being pulled from the bottom all the way to the surface from the bottom of the bike. Geeesh!
We stood there on the bottom, looking up and it was good we did. That garbage can had slipped as it busted loose from the bottom and rode up crooked. As it busted through the surface at and angle, it immediately dumped all of its air! Air gone? Here it came back down at us, a bat out of hell. We saw that damn bike a coming at the same time and although we didn't have a clue as to why it was coming at us at , we did have an idea what would be happening if we were hit on the head by a damn motorcycle in 35 ft of water. Squersh city!
We lunged backwards and got the hell out of the way. Luckily the can was still tied on and slowed its descent a bit. This gave us the time we needed to avoid it. It hit the bottom and if we thought it was stirred up before, that was nothing! It was like a damn bomb had hit. I could not see my hand in front of my face by now. I reached over and found the bike and then the can. I flipped the can over and started filling it again. I got it half filled and it started pulling at the ropes again I slowly added air and immediately became neutral. This was good. Bob was standing on the other side of the bike and helping me stabilize it. The sediment was settling a bit now and we could see a little. I grabbed my pressure gauge to check my air supply and could not believe what I was seeing. 150lbs! That sucks. Normally we come up with 500 lbs. for safety and I was almost out. I had been messing around down there a while and had filled the garbage can off the tank, two times. What ever the reason, I had to surface as soon as I could. I showed it to Bob and he pointed to the surface. He signaled that he would guide it up alone as he had not dumped air in it the second time and had plenty.
I nodded ok and headed for the surface. I swam to the pontoon boat and pulling my fins, climbed to the deck and dumped the empty tank. I saw where Bob was coming up by the explosion of bubbles marking the spot. As he is coming up, the air is expanding in the can and venting out from the bottom. Bobs task is to keep the can steady and not let it dump on the surface as it did before.
It was not long before the can popped to the surface with Bob holding it steady. I could not see the bike as it was still hanging under the can a ways. Bob slowly swam the can, bike and all to the front of the boat. I dropped him a line and he went under to tie it off to the bike. This done, he swam to the ladder and crawled aboard.
Now we had a motorcycle. All we had to do is bring it aboard. Should be easy, right? Wrong! I jumped into the lake and untied the can from the bike. Bob reached down and grabbed it, then pulled it aboard. I swam around to the ladder and climbed back aboard. We both grabbed the rope and tried to pull it up to the deck. This made me realize just how much life a garbage can of air has. We could not get it much above the surface. We are a couple pretty good-sized fellers and we could not do it. Not with a damn rope anyway.
We decided to tie it off to the front of the boat and slowly tow it to the shallow water, which was not far away, maybe a hundred feet or so. This is what we did. We were anxious to see what we had recovered now after all that work. We pulled anchor and slowly motored to the drop off and up shallow until we could stand. It was in about 4 ft of water we stopped. I dropped the anchor and we jumped in, wading around to the bow. We then looked at our prize.
That thing was a piece of junk. It had been down about 2 years too long, I figure. The corrosion was pretty bad and more of a job than I wanted. I looked at my buddy, Bob and asked him if he wanted it. He said hell no! He asked what we were gonna do with it. I said there is one of those hundred foot holes, not far away.
That is where it lies today.
Now all that much of an adventure but it was fun and a learning experience.
Like John says, "I hope you enjoyed the trip!"