Post by SeaRat on Sept 1, 2021 16:15:22 GMT -8
IMG_0375 by John Ratliff, on FlickrThe Dacor Dart has a Dacor vintage but great shape duckbill and the silicone diaphragm.
If I had been thinking more clearly, I would have stripped off my wetsuit and gone diving today in my swimsuit and hood. It would have been a cool dive, but doable. As it was, it was a struggle to stay down.
This was also the first dive on my "new" Scubapro double-post manifold.
I'll have a couple of days to dive again next week.
John
Okay, I have an update on this dive. Yesterday, August 31st, 2021, I dove the same area again, but this time with my Dacor Nautilus CVS. But as per my normal protocol, I met the River Rescue Lifeguards at High Rock to tell them of my intention to dive. I have met these guys and gals before, and one of the Lifeguard guys asked me if I remembered the body search from last Friday. I told him that I sure did, and that I had dove without a weight belt just to get wet, but could not search the areas I really wanted to look at.
“We found the body yesterday,” the Lifeguard told me. He said that he didn’t know it last Friday, but the Sheriff’s Office divers were prohibited from diving in the current. So the lifeguards on Monday decided to get wet and search the unsearched area. It was the deeper pool that I have been down in many, many times, but on Friday because of the lack of a weight belt, and being some 16 pounds buoyant, I couldn’t stay down and search. Lucky thing, because this is where they found the body. He was face-down on the bottom. They left him there, and notified the Sheriff’s office.
A woman in the hotel nearby had seen the body floating in a shallow area of the Clackamas River, and called 911. This precipitated the search, and I had arrived on Friday just after the dive time had left the High Rocks area and was searching downstream. When the dive team didn’t find anything, they thought it was a bogus call. But on Saturday, relatives reported a fellow missing. Overt the weekend, relatives were flying in and doing their own shoreline searches. They found his backpack on the bank upstream somewhere, and highly suspected he was in the river. With that information, on Monday the two lifeguards commented searching the High Rocks current areas and deeper area just below the rapids. I told them that the current under the rapids went 90 degrees from the main rapid flow, and they had figured that out. They searched the current as best they could. They had wetsuits, mask, helmet, Churchill fins, and a life preserver (mandatory). So they had to really work hard to get down to the bottom at 22 feet.
The lifeguards then went to the deeper area, and systematically search the bottom. At one point, one of the lifeguards saw something white on the bottom, and dove down. Beside it, which was a fishing rod tip, they found the body.
“I found it” the lifeguard yelled to his buddy. He replied, “What did you find?” “The body,” came the reply. They tied a line to the body, then notified via radio the Sheriff’s Office. They sent out their dive team to recover the body.
By this time, the relatives and family had arrived. Because the gathering included children, when the Sheriff’s Office dive team arrived, they recovered the body in a Stokes Litter, but also inside a body bag, which they had placed the body inside while underwater. Because the man recovered was a Veteran, they also had some sort of a ceremony as they pulled him out.
I listened to this, and told the lifeguards that I would again dive the area. This time I was diving with my Dacor Nautulis CVS, so I knew that I had the weight correct. I also had my weight belt and another scuba unit available if necessary. I told them that had I found the body, I was going to simply tie my dive float to him and leave him there. Luckily, I didn’t have to do that as my weight belt was at home, and I could not remain submerged. But yesterday (August 31, 2021) I had both my float and my Nautilus CVS for floatation. I was told that there was still a rather large bag missing.
So I dove, and searched the upper pool without finding anything. I went under the rapids, and still nothing. I went into the deeper pool, and found the white fishing pole tip, just where I would have been last Friday had my dive gone as planned. (It’s actually really hard to have 16 pounds of rock in your hand and stay submerged; you cannot do anything other than hold onto the rocks.). I surfaced a time or two, blew ballast and looked around. Apparently the family was there on the shore, and watching me. I did a couple of more rings around the area, then followed the far shore downstream, without finding anything more. I had the fishing pole tip in my hand. I then finally surfaced with the fishing pole tip, blew ballast again, and started swimming upstream on my back. The relatives were by this time gone. I handed the pole tip to the lifeguard, then swam a bit further upstream to the exit area to the top of the High Rocks hole.
As I was exiting, one of the lifeguards asked if I needed help getting out. I told him, “No, this is part of the workout.” I noted that there was now flowers and a memorial to the drowning victim at my exit. Exiting is a process, including getting out of my fins, finding my balance on the really slick rocks, standing up, climbing up over 3 feet onto the rocks, and reorganizing myself for the climb/walk out. Part of that is climbing out about 20 feet up over rocks. I finally got to my car, took off my gear, got into walking shoes and went down again to the fileguard station. The by then had swimmers in the water, and we talked just a bit more. They told me that I had been right over the area where they spotted the body. I noted that one of the lifeguards had the fishing pole tip in his backpack; probably a keepsake for this experience.
Well, that was my last solo dive of the season. The lifeguards will be there through Labor Day Weekend, but that’s it. Since Chris isn’t working next weekend, she and I will be doing things together. I will need a buddy to dive it again, which will happen, but may not be until October.
John
