Diving Story

[CanadianBoy]

Hey People,
Here's a diving story for you.
Back in 1970 I started diving for a hobby,and at that time was also a bottle hunter.
The only problem with diving is you need a diving buddy in case you get into trouble down there.
I was out of work at the time and the only people I got to dive with worked so that first year I didn't get much diving in just a bit now & then in shallow water by myself,which is still kind of chancy!!.
But the second year was great,I was diving all over Ontario,lots of wrecks in Lake Ontario.& Tobermory,the Muskoka's,lots of Rivers & streams,Rice Lake etc.
There's alot of stuff on the wrecks,course if you bring it up and get caught its considered PIRACY.
Don't get me wrong,I found all kinds of bottles that were not on wrecks,lots of dumps off the end of piers and docks,and some really deep,the deepest I ever went down was 170' and was it ever dark & kinda scary.
That summer was also the summer my dive buddy and I entered a contest put on by the local Dive Shop,the two man team who brought up the most bottles in a 1 month period got a years supply of air and a Dive Watch each.
Well,every bit of daylight was used,we even dove at night but it was better in the light of day.
You had to take the bottles to the Dive Shop to be counted and then stored and at the end of the month were taken to the recycling depot and the money given to charity.
We ended up with the BIG win,we brought up 3645 bottles.
Of these there were about 500 collectable,these were sold and we gave the money to the same charity,I still have the Dive Watch even though I don't dive anymore.
Reading about some of you diver kinda brought it all to the SURFACE (pun intended) again.

 

[grdigger35]

They made laws calling it Piracy because the lawmakers couldn't find a way to get their own mitts on the stuff. I dove for many years including hard hat and bell sat. I've got alot of bottles but I never took one from their precious preserves. That's what the State of Michigan calls them. Eventually the wrecks will rot away and they can be classified as dumps.

 

[warith]

That is an excellent idea! I reckon I'll recommend it to one of the people I know of who works in a dive shop here in Sydney!! Once every year we have a "Clean Up Australia" day where many thousands of Australians grab a large garbage bag and collect rubbish mostly from waterways and parks.


Warith

 

[TheDiggerBoy91]

Boy, too bad nobody does that here in The States!! Then I'd have an excuse for wading through waist-high murky water with a load of bottles in my arms!![]

 

[kastoo]

I hear ya..I'm from Tonawanda N.Y. which is smack dab between Lakes Erie and Ontario..15 min from each. I've always wondered what nasty things lurked at the deepest darkest part of the lakes...I know some unseen living thing is down there...and that's what would scare me.

 

[Maine Digger]

That unseen living thing down there was probably CANADIANBOY brrrrr[]

 

[David E]

Here is a story I heard on radio today, a guy being interviewed was a diving for a living.
On Lake Washington here in WA state. They had a Naval Air station mostly used doing WW11. Well they have found several old aircraft that crashed, two of which hit THEY ARE OLD VINTAGE PLANES BUT MUST BE TURNED OVER TO THE GOVERNMENT. (i say finder's keepers). He said they have gone down to 200 ft in the lake and you only can see one foot in front of yourself and if you stir up the bottom it makes it even worse.. Coming back up requires a good deal of decompresion and they can't stay very long on bottom. There is also an ancient forest down there, that slide into water. I know this to be true as some years back a guy was arrested for trying to log that forrest. He says the planes are in good shape because of fresh rather than salt water.
Dave

 

[Maine Digger]

David, we've had the same type of case here in Maine. There's a couple of British Corsairs on the bottom of Sebago lake in southern part of the state. Last summer some divers found one, mostly intact and wanted to raise it. All hell broke loose! The British govt. requested that they be left undesturbed as it considers them a burial site. In this same lake there's virgin forest 'King's Pine' logs that sank in the early 1700s as they were being floated across the lake to the canal that led to the atlantic coast in Stroudwater. These logs were claimed by the King of England for the masts of his warships. There's also a side-wheel schooner down there somewhere that swamped in mid 1800s. Our northern lakes are also filled with artifacts; I'm not sur how much diving has been done, they are very deep and very cold. I imagine at the old landings locations there's bottles to be found. The original canal that connected the lake to the ocean runs right through the town I live in, some sections still 'canal-like' water filled, other parts just depressions in the fields. I keep meaning to borrow a good metal detector and spend some time walking it.

 

[oldshoe4u]

There is an old landfill circa 1850-1920 near where I live that is now a county run park. This landfill/park is right on the mouth of a river feeding into a lake. I'd love to dive this spot! I tried digging but the picknickers seem to frown on that LOL[&:]..Just kidding.
I wonder how deep you can go wih snorkel equipment as I have no scuba gear. Id hold my breath for quite some time for an old cathedral ink or two even longer for an EG Booze[&:]!

 

[Maine Digger]

Bob, just curious, where about in central NY are you? I grew up in Town of Crawford, near New Paltz in Ulster County. I still have nightmares of visiting the ruins of my great grandfather's hunting lodge on the upper slopes of the Shwagunks when I first started rooting for bottles back in the late 60s. We came across piles of smashed cobalt, amythyst, green, amber etc. bottles that had been lined uo and used for target practice by some Modern Day Hunters grrr[] No this isn't a knock against hunters, just dumb city slickers who came upstate to shoot everything but game!