No caves here, we have to improvise

[rjack]

This has been posted elsewhere but in case you haven't seen it, here's a brief report on our initial exploration into a flooded mine last weekend.

Product mined: copper
Last worked: ~1930
First dive: unknown, no evidence
Max depth: 91ft and still going
Water temp: ~42f

Our first foray, max depth 91ft, runtime 20mins, 120ft of line laid, basically a near vertical shaft 4ft tall x 8-10ft wide, timbers for sliding up ore on the 'floor', ladder on the west side, piping and pumps along the east edge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_26k2DOvHk

[FW]

Be careful! Submerged mines can collapse due to rotting timbers, with the added stress of air bubbles, water movement, etc.

[rjack]

This one seems pretty solid. The only shoring is at a raise (vertical shaft up to the surface) and that appears to be to keep debris from raining down on you. There is some cribbing at the top of the incline shaft (the part we dove). Those timbers are huge and have very little material on top. We are nevertheless trying to limit our diving for safety reasons and we are not disclosing the mine outside our group.

[fixxervi6]

man thats super cool, wish I had something like that around here.

I'd rather have caves, but this would be better than what we have :-(

[rjack]

Thanks, there are alot of mines in Washington, but very few are reasonably intact or flooded. We know of a couple more possibilities that will take more research and probably a insane amount of hiking to access. There are lots of caves up on Vancouver Island and a lava tube in Oregon on private land with difficult permissions. So we have options, just nothing like the southeast, FL or Mexico.

[rjack]

We went back. Fun diving, difficult filming in a near vertical shaft tho.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1ig3ZuQdNU

[Swede]

Nice Mine!

One thing that we have learned from many dives in flooded mines is that it is wise not to put placements or tie offs in any debris in the mine… especially not in wooden material. It is easy to kick the line and the wooden part can fall over or break. And if you would grab the line… no good…

Well… hope you get some more nice dives in the mine... try to get hold of some video lights till next time.

[FW]

Nice Mine!

One thing that we have learned from many dives in flooded mines is that it is wise not to put placements or tie offs in any debris in the mine… especially not in wooden material. It is easy to kick the line and the wooden part can fall over or break. And if you would grab the line… no good…

Well… hope you get some more nice dives in the mine... try to get hold of some video lights till next time.

Good advice!

[BDub]

Nice Mine!

One thing that we have learned from many dives in flooded mines is that it is wise not to put placements or tie offs in any debris in the mine… especially not in wooden material. It is easy to kick the line and the wooden part can fall over or break. And if you would grab the line… no good…

Well… hope you get some more nice dives in the mine... try to get hold of some video lights till next time.

Yeah, we definitely learned that on this dive as well. That actually happened when I was attempting to make a couple of tie-offs.

[brokenbones]

Up here, we also suffer from lack of caves (there are a few, but access is tough and viz is really crappy right now).

We do a few dives a year in an old quartz mine. It has a huge cavern area and the cave goes down to 170ft. Water temperature is always cold (between 37-39f) except at the thermocline at 5 feet. Viz is usually good except in the tunnel between

Here is a video a friend of mine made a few years ago...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EkOJhFrbTs