The Mine LaMotte Update

[stingray1]

Here it is again, The Mine LaMotte Report - Home of the Dark Water Dive Club??? Guys..

I GREAT BIG Applause to all of the Divers that showed up today...Skdvr, B1gcountry, Fleep, Jawsa1, Geno, ResQDiver and of course myself.

A 4x8 trailer was loaded with trash today by these divers and hauled away for seed money to be used to help make this place a nicer attraction comparative to other top quarry dive sites.

I believe everyone had a lot of fun today as we do this winter long clean up drive. We made new friends and got wet and no injuries or accidents. What else could we ask for....never mind that statement.

Pictures are to follow in coming days as about half of us had cameras today.
Thermo cline was somewhere around twenty eight or so feet. Vis above the thermo was around 10 to 12 feet and it was surprisingly warm today. Forgot the exact temp. I'm sure someone recorded it. We cleaned up this morning and had lunch in a dry cave and had a fun exploration dive during the late afternoon.

A pretty goood day all in all.

Thanks everyone.

 

[skdvr]

Thanks for organizing this, it really was a good time. Good time with good people, doing a good thing. I look forward to helping out as much as I can in the future...

Phil

 

[ResQDiver]

Another Thread Thank GOD!!... I had a great time with everyone. A BIG Thanks to everyone that showed up and helped out with the clean up. I hope eveyone had a great time I know I did.
Next weekend if anyone wants to get wet I can do it on Sunday. Already have plans for Sat.

Talk to everyone soon.. Im dying to know how many lbs. of cans we got up...

 

[skdvr]

I went through all the garbage today and seperated the plastic, cans, and garbage. The recycler for the cans is not open until tues, and they are only open until 4pm, so hopefully I can get out of work early enough or talk my wife into driving the truck over there to drop them off.

I also talked to a friend of mine (also a diver whos wife just had a kid so he could not make it down) who knows a few big wig conservation dept types and he is going to talk to them about getting me a couple hundered of those bags that you got for us this last weekend. I think that those worked out great for what we needed them for.

Stingray - I did find your black liner for your boat in my trailer, so I will bring that down next time or if you or ResQ are up in the St Louis area shoot me a PM and you can swing by my house and get it.

Phil

 

[fleep]

Thanks again to Sting&ResQ for organizing a fun and successfull trip. Also thanks to everyone who showed up, and especially SkDvr, for bringing out the trailer and dealing with the recycling! It was fun meeting you all and great diving with you. Ken, the Manager, was really cool and I think we have a new friend in him. Hopefully we can get him certified soon. The cleanup went well, the diving was great and the lunch session was a high point for me -this place is as cool above the water as it is below. I hope to dive with you all in the near future.

~~fleep


Attached are a few pics from this wknd. I have created a photo album where I will post all future lamotte pics (and the rest of this weeks pics) that you can browse here:
http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=2681

 

[skdvr]

I put a few of my pics in a gallery as well... All topside pics...

http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php

Phil

 

[skdvr]

OK, so I just figured out that I posted the wrong link above. Here is a good one.

http://www.scubaboard.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=2682

Phil

 

[b1gcountry]

BTW, one of the activities I still have to do with my DM candidacy is the UW mapping project. I'm going to try to talk my instructor into letting us do it at that first set of caverns we swan through. Does anybody know what sort of survey work has been done before?

Tom

 

[bsigmund]

Guys,
Glad to know it went well. Hope to help the next time. ResQDiver, I can be available for diving at LaMotte on Sunday. My brother will go as well.
Thanks,
Bill

 

[fleep]

We need to be very carefull about not accidentally entering into cave sections of the cavern-with no lines and the probable swiss cheese of tunnels we could easily get dead. This means that we:
1. should always stay together (unless you want to be solo-ing, which we should decide beforehand)
2. we should never loose sight of the light from the entrances
3. we should always be sure that there is open air above us (i felt we did these 3 things pretty well on our dive).
I was mostly swimming on/right below the surface and kept popping my head out to check that the entrances were still visible above water. When we dropped under the low hanging section of ceiling our boat safeties were worried that we were entering a cave tunnel, so we always need to be sure to consider them as well. I appreciated that some/all of us communicated with our flashlights to keep checking for air above. I also plan on using a reel in the future during the darker parts of the dive. This will help to ensure that if I accidentally swim into a tunnel my line will lead me back through the swiss cheese and will help to alleviate my urge to keep surfacing and checking the entrances.

Another thought I had was that I did alot of surfacing and diving to ~15ft in the cavern zone-it pissed off my computer One of us had a headache at the end of the dive and I probably should have paid closer attention when they mentioned it. The lesson for me there was that I need to pay close attention to the feedback I'm getting from my body-not just my computer. Also I should probably respond better when someone tells me they have a headache and surface swim with them back to the dock at that point. Sorry for not thinking about it or offering. On the other hand, I know you are a professional diver with more experience than I have, and I am VERY confident that if you felt like you needed to swim back to the dock or wanted some O2, or wanted me to be right on your side, you would have mentioned it Still, I should have offered...

Also dangling a light from the boat would have been a good idea-obviously if you can see the light, there is a boat and air aboveya, and this would have allowed them to signal us when they thought we were entering a tunnel. I'm looking into a 12volt underwater spkr system so that they could call us back to the boat for any reason.

To me, StingRay's strobe tank light was great in the murk. That is a cheap investment that would help keep us all together and I am going to order one.

I think we did a really good job of diving safe, and these reflections are just an opportunity for me to think what I could do better next time. I would love to see what other safety ideas/improvements the rest of you have, and if you saw me (or any of us) doing something that concernedya, feel free to send a PM! I appreciate constructive criticism-I know I have a LOT to learn.


Sorry for the Long Essay,

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