How Stupid Would This Be?

[Eino Maki]

A. Somewhat stupid
B. Moderately stupid
C. Quite stupid

On May 22 I was in the BWCA with three of my kids. Junior and my daughter capsized while fishing at the tail end of a small rapids. The water was 6 to 10 feet deep. Junior lost two fine fishing rods and some small tackle boxes. Junior and I are contemplating a gear retrieval trip. I would take one tank and dive alone, with him on the surface. It's one portage in, about one hour paddlefrom the parking lot. I have done over 40 dives. I have never taken a solo dive, but feel it could be done safely under certain conditions.
All input is welcome. You won't hurt my feelings!
Eino

[waterpanda]

Is it legal to dive in the BWCA? That might be the first thing to contemplate...

[AandA]

Sounds tempting.

However in your situation I would avoid this dive for a few reasons. You indicate that you have completed over forty dives. This is very good. Forty dives is sufficient to start getting a real feel for the sport. It is not in my opinion, sufficient time, or training, to begin solo diving. You mention that you would bring only one tank. One of the foundation tenets of diving, ESPECIALY SOLO DIVING, is redundancy. You can always depend on one thing, the one thing is, that things will go wrong. This is not an if question, but a when question. Without proper training and equipment this can result in a situation that may cause serious harm or death. One tank means only one air source, usually your buddy is the other air source. Have you considered how YOU will handle the situation of an out-of-air emergency. There are ways to handle this, the question is do YOU know how YOU will do it? When diving in an area used for fishing are you prepared to handle entanglement? You also indicate that this would be your very first solo dive. Probably a very poor place to start. Firsts SHOULD normally be done on familiar turf with equipment you are used to and a dive mission that you are familiar with (have you done search and recovery dives). SOLO diving itself is still controversial. Those divers who enjoy this type of diving, and do so reasonably safely, are advanced/master divers or higher with well over a hundred hours of diving. They have also received additional training specific to techniques of self rescue, and are properly equipped.

You indicate that the water where you lost the equipment is only six to ten feet deep. I would reccomend that you snorkel/free dive in order to retrieve your lost fishing gear. the water depth should be well within your comfortable range no matter what your ability without a tank.

[tpscuba]

Yes you can dive in the BWCA Some nice clear lakes I wouldn't do more than 1 or 2 portages though. Which lake did you loose it in and could this be done as a day trip I might have one or two that would join you for the fun let me know and I'll see who would like to go.
Rick

[scubadog76]

Due to the liability of the world we live in, I don't think you will find anyone to "encourage" you to do this. If someone says go and something happens, Lawyers will circle like gnats. This sport and it standards have mostly evolved around the buddy system. That is how you and eveyone else have been trained. Going beyond that training, you increase YOUR risk. If you plan to do this anyway, you may want to post your procedures. You plan to have Jr. on the surface helping you out. I don't know if you meant like ice diving where a rope is tied to the diver (not the equipment) and a series of tugs signaled back and forth indicate problems....2 tugs from land and the diver signals back with 2 tugs their okay. 4 tugs indicate a prob. If you had similar plans to this, would jr. be physically able to help you out if the need arose? Similar things like this may look good on paper but not in water. Also, by asking a consensous if you should do this, it would indicate there is a little voice barking in your ear against it.(kinda like the Watsons girl) It sucks listening to it, but you usually should. Ultimately, tpscuba's suggestion is the best. I'm sure they can find a buddy for you seeing as you are probably 1 of 100's who have lost items of importance there. You'll probably even find people in town here that will go treasure hunting with you. Best of luck on this, Jeff.

[Eino Maki]

I want to thank you four people who gave the thoughful responses to my question. I have not made any plans to do this dive. As I said, we were contemplating it. I just tossed it out there to see what divers with way more experience than I have would think of it. It is still tempting to think about. I guess the voice in the back of my head says that doing it solo would not be too smart. However, the thought of getting entangled in fishing line with 40 minutes of air left is more appealing than getting snared with 40 seconds of breath left if free diving.
When I was a mere lad of about 15, about 1965, there was a feature in the Sunday paper about some divers that went into what is now the BWCA. They dove below "run-able rapids." In the fur trading days, imagine Pierre and Serge' in their canoe above the rapids. "Should we run them or should we unload all this stuff and portage around?" Well, plenty of times Pierre won out and they ran them. Plenty of times they dumped the canoe too. The divers found dozens (maybe hundreds) of cast iron pots and kettles that the trappers were carrying as trade goods.
Now that is is the BWCA, these are considered artifacts and you cannot remove them from the BWCA. It would still be fun to check it out sometime. There are probably fishing rods stacked up a foot deep in places too.
I have rambled. Anyway, if I could go with a few other divers it might be a fun adventure. The entry point was Baker Lake and it is about a easy 90 minute paddle to the site where my kids capsized. The visibility would probably only be a few feet. It could easily be a day trip. When we leave my house, about 50 miles north of the twin cities, we are usually on the water about six hours after we leave the house. This includes picking up our permit, which wouldn't be necessary for day tripping.
Thanks again for taking time to reply.
Eino

[freedivernd]

Eino,
only six to 10 feet deep.. I'd only take a mask and snorkel and a good pair of fins.. oh yeah, a wetsuit and a weight belt.
I've "snorkeled" rapids in Montana.. checking out the trout (there was a lone fisherman that wasn't too impressed, he must have been having a bad day ;D) what suprised me was as I was letting the rapids take me I would keep my hands out in front to avoid the rocks.. only thing was I never hit a rock because the flow of the water always took me over them. As far as how fast the rapids were I don't know. I do know that in some places, finning as hard as I could, I would lose headway. (I've finned at almost 5mph) and some places I had to pull myself by rocks or roots that were sticking out the sides of the river or I would have been a bit more downstream. The shallows were the toughest.. the deeper I got the better the going was.
Fred

[Freedive WI]

I wouldn't recomend the solo thing, but I have snorkeled rapids an saw a ton of fish while I was in there. They all seemed to gather around the boulders and hung out right under the standing waves- is that what you found Fred?

I also remember snorkeling up in the BWCA when I was on a trip there in highschool. I found lots of gutted fish skeletons and even a half empty jug of wine- which we were to cautious to drink at the time.

Jon

[freedivernd]

I remember most of the fish were down in the low pockets, still in the current. Vis was not that good, maybe 3 feet or so where the water was really moving, the rivers were flooded from the rains. The trout acted a lot more like walleye than sunfish..

[Eino Maki]

The Siren's Song was too much to resist. My son and I made the trip and recovered almost all of the lost fishing gear. I also found two nice anchors. The imagined tangle of fishing lines was non-existant. I had never been up that river in the summer before. In the spring it's all open. Now it's about a mile and a half of wild rice from shore to shore.
The dive was simple. After a scrupulous pre-dive equipment check, all went well. I was in the water for 40 minutes, maximum depth - 16 feet. I found a nice Schrade lock back knife and a pair of stainless folding scissors on the bottom, lying two inches apart. I imagine they fell out of some anglers pocket together. I guess I'm not proud of going it solo, but I was very careful.
Flame away!
Eino