Divers and Pirates get all the b00ty!

Monday, August 06 – 2007
10:15 – 13:45
Start: 10:45
Roads: Dry / clear
Visibility: 24km
Temp: +26C
Area: Decew Falls
Vehicle: Niva
Weather: Overcast
Trail Conditions: Dry dirt
Hikers: Tori, Wolf, Chuck
Plan: Explore the Decew Falls Basin to see if it’s worthy of a Scuba Dive

10:15 We arrived fairly early after meeting up with Chuck. Grabbed mask, fins, snorkel, and wet-suit to make our way to Decew Falls.

10:45 We arrived at the Decew Morningside Mill and showed one of several new rope-entry points, then went back to the car to get all of our gear.

10:54 We headed back on the trails to a very steep rocky incline where we slowly descended using a thin yellow rope to the canyon where we followed a trail along to the first small waterfall and got some photos, then on to the large waterfall where we surveyed the site then kitted-up for our exploration. We went into the warm clear, waters to find the bottom covered in rocks. There wre schools of bright blue minnows and a few goby. I also observed hundreds of crayfish. We scoured the bottom back and forth in the 1.5m deep water. Chuck found a dive mask, a pair of pink girls shoes, broken sunglasses and a 2004 Twenty Dollar Canadian note! We swam around and snorkeled under the falls and had a great time. Wolf found some car keys for a dodge Ram and a Canadian dime. We spent about an hour at the base of the falls and the basin. We concluded our exploration and headed back to shore. As we got out, we were joined by two young college girls.

With our gear still on, we went up to the small waterfall and got some great photos. On the way down, we saw a small crayfish who was climbing the waterfall & photographed him. Tori attempted to rescue him and put him into deeper water but dropped him into the water.

Chuck found a few large bones at the base of the waterfall. We wondered where they came from or whose they were.

We took the time to go into the mine, but with no torches we could not go in very far. We came down from the hill with the mine on it and doffed our equipment, packed up and filled out the journal near the base of the water-fall.

13:19 We started heading back

13:30 We ascended the canyon and started to head back to the vehicle.

13:41 We returned to the vehicle and relaxed for a few mins, looked at the photos then chuck took us out to lunch with the $20.00 booty he found.

Divers and Pirates get all the booty!