September 22:    The plan for Thirsty Thursday dive night was in the Saint Joseph river as it flows thru Niles.  The time was changed to 5:30-7:30 to give the working guys a little more time to get here.  Pickup point for getting a  ride to the dive site was at the Marmont St. Launch.  We had 3 drivers and one shore support (Barb) off the park boardwalk in Niles and three divers launched from Marmont street. We were spread out all along the shore line and collected the following. Fast current, many many trees and snag points with 4-5 foot visibility, water temperature ~65 F surface. Saw some HUGE cat fish among the sunken tree’s and a couple of large bass.  I did uncover a cache of older small coke bottles. Top Photo: No Christmas cokes and only 3 were local- one was from Texas. Bottom Photo: The large milk was a nice embossed “Twin Pine Dairy, Guernsey Milk, T.W. Keirnan”. The purse did not have any money in it, honest! 

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.