Welland Canal Night Dive (121)

Saturday, October 06 – 2007
20:30 – 21:15
Dive Number 121
Start: 20:30
Roads: Dry / clear
Visibility: 24km
Temp: +22C
Water Temp: +20C
Area: Old Welland Canal Train Swing Bridge
Vehicle: Black Sunfire
Weather: Starry Night
Visibility: 6m
Divers: Wolf, Chuck
Dive Wench(es): Tori, Rob
Maximum Depth: 12m
Plan: Night Dive

We arrived around 20:00hes and kitted up under a street lamp. There were a few prostitots and kinderho’s nearby who expressed an interest in our activity. One exclaimed that people poop in the river. It has been several years since I have done a night dive. We walked across the street and down the hill to an old wooden dock. We entered the water and turned on our strobes and torches. I used my large black UK black torch and Chuck had a small back-up light as his main torch. We swam across under the bridge to see the rototiller, bed, and other items we had seen on the last dive here. There were quite a lot of fish here. The great part about diving at night is the environment is completely different. The fish all have their fins up, and were very docile. There are also a lot more fish to view. It always feels like we are hundreds of metres deep due to the darkness, not the shallow 12m we were at. For some reason we got an extra 2m depth at this spot than the last time we were here, which was an unexpected surprise. We found a small metal bucket which I filled with exhaust air and attached a weight to it and sent it up to the surface. It did, however, come back and knocked me in the noggin. Chuck found a small cement trowel. We saw a large piece of guard rail and a large metal slab and the top of an old oil drum. Sadly we came across the road cone with the model helicopter in it, but someone had removed the helicopter and it was nowhere to be seen. Around 50bar we ascended to the surface and swam back to the dock which Tori and Rob had lit up with candles so we could see them from the water. This was a great dive, and visibility was okay at 6m.