September 18: Sunday was a beautiful day to fly, jump, or Dive. Diving won out 🙂
You might note the fantastic bottles that John is holding and Hallie’s nice embossed bottle with lightening stopper. Did a double dipper with Darren who showed up late and collected a few more items. No major finds but still a fun dive. And yes, were are always finding bones – none human as far as we know. 
September 15: This evenings dive was just down river from the RXR bridge. Fast current closer to the bridge and a heavy layer of sediment overburden along the right bank. Plenty of down tree parts and resulting snag hazards. No old bottles this trip out but lots of misc metal. People often ask what we do with the firearms we recover. Seldom an issue because they are typically too far gone to be viable of use or even evidence. It was daylight when we started and night when we finished.
September 11: Sunday PM Grubbing with Big John, Rob, and myself. Current was much faster than Thursday due to the rain in between and a few feet higher at the upper park launch. That of course made the visibility less than desirable but manageable. Another nice day to be diving. Initially we were going to dive the Marmont launch area but the high water, low vis and large amounts of flocculent from unknown source made us change our dive site. It was odd to find a good number of crutches (not brought up) around that area. Unsure what their proximity to the hospital has to do with that though.
Flocculent , in photo above, and dive site should never be in the same sentence. Mini foamy icebergs sounds better. Below photo #1 was from the first dive and photo #2 with the crutches from the second dive.
September 8: We started TTD’s a little early and did a double dip. The first dive had me going back to the bridge from the other evening with Rob cause he could get off work early. We parked in the hospital lot and climbed down the embankment and dressed out under the bridge. After we used all our air we packed up and went to the Marmont launch point to wait for the 5:00 PM divers. Big John showed up with his boat and picked up Jim, Rob and myself and then everyone wanted to go back to the bridge area again.
Photo #1 is from the first dive and that nice big jug on the left is mine 😉 . Photo #2 contains items from the second dive and Photo #3 is of some of the metal signs Big John brought back. 
is from dive #2.
September 7, 2016: This was a Wednesday evening dive with Big John. Took John’s boat over and anchored on the far bank then scooted underwater up toward the new rebuilt bridge. John located one hole near the old supports at about 25 feet. The current was very fast today with lots of tree trunks, limbs, concrete with rebar sticking out all together creating puncture and snag hazards. But the worst thing were the mosquito’s after the dive and later on shore unloading the boat. Seriously, when you have to keep your wet suit on including the face mask until you start the boat and are speeding away VS getting eaten alive, that’s pretty bad. John had the best find with a huge stoneware crock as seen in the attached photo. The bottom left item is not a turtle but an Army helmet. Top left is a nice three sided embossed med bottle. Supper afterward was at the Good-Enuff Pub. 
September 5, 2016: Today we dove the launch point on Marmont Street in Niles. Did single tank dive then most of us had supper at the Nugget in down town Niles then beat feet home.
September 1: Results from the first Niles river dive of September. The water is actually getting less warm and a wet suit hood is a very good idea. This dive would NOT have been enjoyable for the inexperienced because the current was fast even close to shore and you had to have a river stick or two to work the bottom. After the dive the three of us went to the “Good Anuff Pub” to warm up and do a post dive debrief.
August 25, 2016: Another great day for diving Paw Paw lake in Coloma/Watervliet. Only had three other divers participate in today’s dive but all had a great dive even though the visibility was only 5 feet. The water has a brown look to it which may be from the decaying weeds that the chemical control spray has brought under control. Not very many treasures recovered but a good time was had. After the dive we went to the “Friendly Tavern” for refreshments and food.
Sunday, August 21: The Annual “Michigan Underwater Divers” (MUD) Club Picnic was held this afternoon in Niles. As usual we had more food than a Baptist Potluck and no one went away hungry. This was an unusual picnic for the Muddies in that we did not have a drift dive , regular grub dive or anyone kayaking due to very high water level and fast currents.
As many of our TTD’s many begin and end between 5:30-7:30 PM. Dive locations vary but members tend to want to go where the grubbing action is the best. Therefore we are often diving in Niles, Michigan, in(or under) the Saint Joseph River as it flows along “Riverfront Park”.
Many chose to enter the water at the “semi-submerged pipe” or the dock by the kayak launch point down which is behind the movie theater. All divers are required to bring their own “diver location flag” or make sure they are sharing a flag with a close buddy.
In addition to a location flag we encourage divers to bring a bug/goody bag for their finds and a river stick to help them maneuver in current. Visibility is often limited in the river so with new or less experienced divers we usually have a mentor dive with them.
Here’s a sample of TODAY’S finds by a couple of retired guys who started much earlier in the day.
