IrishPaul
Registered
Good on ya!
The only people worse than those who keep other peoples wallets are those who think that it is okay for them to take the cash out first as a reward before giving the wallet back!
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Drift with a twist
- Thread starter DaleC
- Start date
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Good on ya!
The only people worse than those who keep other peoples wallets are those who think that it is okay for them to take the cash out first as a reward before giving the wallet back!
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Dr Dog
Contributor
Yep, as Dr Dog said, we do that here in the East on the Niagara River. As DA alluded, we drag fins as brakes. The bass swarm your feet as you are frequently uncovering crayfish. There is one place here where they trenched the rock bottom to install a pipe. You can drop into it, getting out of the current. You can stop, and watch everything scream by above you. When you come out though, you can get seriously "rag dolled" in the turbulence.
What is really a trip is when we do it at night..... I have narrowly missed been hit by a tumbling "Lazy Boy", and my buddy once almost got stuck in a barrel that was on the bottom... Many cool finds, including various old bottles are not uncommon.
Thanks for sharing.
What is really a trip is when we do it at night..... I have narrowly missed been hit by a tumbling "Lazy Boy", and my buddy once almost got stuck in a barrel that was on the bottom... Many cool finds, including various old bottles are not uncommon.
Thanks for sharing.
Nah, the worst thing I had was when I lost my daytimer. It was a little bigger than a wallet, had all my contact information, money, credit cards, etc. I never left the city so it was lost locally. I actually walked everywhere so it was within walking distance of my house. After I lost it I cancelled all my credit cards, got them replaced, send word out I lost all my contact information, rebuilt the list from emails, old address books, etc. and had to rebuild my calendar. Figuring out what appointments I had coming up was the hardest thing. I had my life planned out for months in advanced. I was a busy guy.
Three months after I lost my daytimer I receive a notice from the post office that there is a package waiting for me. Someone had taken the leather folder, removed all my information and credit cards, kept the money, put the contents in a brown paper bag, wrote my mailing address on the bag, taped it shut and dropped it in a mailbox. Since my address was the only address on the 'package' the post office contacted me. I had to pay to have it delivered (didn't know what was in it but curiosity got the better of me). They held it for 3 months because they didn't know what to do with a package with no postage stamps. It went from department to department until someone decided to contact me and ask me to pay for it. The credit cards had been replaced, the contact list had been restored, I missed one or two appointments but rebuilt the calendar. I paid $5 for trash essentially. The leather fold and the money were the only thing I still cared about and they were gone. That was annoying.
DA Aquamaster is a stand up guy. We need more people like him. Karma is a boomerang, whatever you put out there comes back on you. DA Aquamaster gets back 100 blessings.
No, Portage Ave bridge. If you go in on the south east side from the parking lot there's a dock. Walk in there. Used to be you could go in on the Tim Horton's side from a cement sidewalk, but the city "beautified" it and now it's all limestone chunks. Hard on the ankles.
Stanley St bridge is where you can get out. Or you can get out before at the boat ramp, just come in to shore before surfacing upstream of the Nassau St. boat ramp (but you knew that). It's about a 40 minute drift. The 1930s car is about 1/2 way to the boat ramp on that side of the river...near the old train bridge abuttment I think. In about 25 ft of water.
Griffo
Contributor
I thought you guys were crazy. But then someone sent me this link
River Drift Diving Queenstown New Zealand - YouTube
Bloody kiwi's.
River Drift Diving Queenstown New Zealand - YouTube
Bloody kiwi's.
ferris213
Contributor
The New Zealand dive looked to be around 2 knots. At that speed you'd be able to move around things but your momentum would drive you into things rather than getting pushed around them. You definitely have to have good buoyancy control. The faster the current, the lower the visibility, the more likely you are going to hit things. You will have a tendency to bounce off them and roll around them. You aren't going to break every bone in your body. You'd be a little bruised and sore. The bigger danger is hooking your regulator hose and having the regulator ripped out of your mouth. The current will make the regulator go right behind you. The standard trick of leaning to one side and sweeping your hand wouldn't work. You'd have to reach back to the valve, find the hose and pull the regulator back so you can get it back in your mouth.
Natural instinct will make it so you don't smash your mask. Most people are going to put there hand out if they see themselves going head first into a rock.
You could definitely get in some trouble if you started getting bounced around and lost your regulator. Don't know what boat traffic is like in that area but the two really fast drift dives I've done (Superman's Flight in St. Lucia and St. Lawrence River) have a lot of boat traffic. They are considered overhead environments. There is no physical ceiling but you have to treat it like there was because going for the surface could kill you. The St. Lawrence River has huge freighters. If you get in trouble and come up under a freighter you have no hope of surviving.
I remember the first time someone described the St. Lawrence River drift to me. I thought there was NO way I'd do that. I when on a boat charter. Didn't know where we were going. Ended up on the drift. Did it and had a hoot. If you are comfortable in the water and have good buoyancy control, they aren't that bad. Notice in both videos they are VERY close to the bottom but they are not dragging in it.
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That looks very close to the drift diving we used to do below hydro electric dams. If you are a foot or two off the bottom and in the main flow of the current it does tend to take you around large rocks with minimal effort needed on your part. If however you are hugging the bottom where the water is a bit more turbulent, it is more likely to take you into a rock.
On the other hand, a large rock provides a nice eddy behind it where you can stop out of the flow and with enough rocks you can move laterally out into the river, or back toward shore without giving up much distance.
The challenge in strong currents like that is to get quickly out into the middle of a river where few divers manage to get from shore, and then be able to time it right to start your return swim so as not to miss your exit point. At age 18 it was fun. Now I'd probably just opt to use a boat to drop me off and pick me up.
Ditto the comment on boat traffic forming an over head. Even if you have a dive flag, most boats will ignore it and larger vessels either won't see it or just can't do anything about it.
OP
DaleC
Contributor
Made me chuckle at the very similar experiences. My comments in bold.
On the other hand, a large rock provides a nice eddy behind it where you can stop out of the flow and with enough rocks you can move laterally out into the river, or back toward shore without giving up much distance.
I returned two days later to the same drift and the river was running a bit slower, near the end were large waves of sand (like UW dunes) that I kept trying to eddy into. I could hold it for a second or two but then I was gone again
The challenge in strong currents like that is to get quickly out into the middle of a river where few divers manage to get from shore, and then be able to time it right to start your return swim so as not to miss your exit point.
At the beginning of the video I am swimming like mad to get out into the mid channel and then reverse course and swim madly away as I see the looming bridge footing coming towards me. At the end I had several hundreds yards to go (so I thought) but saw a dark shadow pass over my head and realized it was the second bridge I was supposed to exit before. I had a bit of a surface walk (with double SM's)
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