How I Ended Up at the Bottom of a Water Filled Mine Shaft

In the Late nineties, I was living in Secret Cove Marina. I was working three gigs at the time. The main one was building docks and boathouses and miscellaneous other marine related jobs. The other two was learning how to do rock blasting with Don Fowler and then good old scuba diving for dollars. Scuba for dollars involved many things back then, It could be Bill, John and myself, repairing outfall lines for the regional district, salvaging sunken boats or parts of boats. There were some good jobs with Mackenzie Sea Services in marine construction  or whatever work involved deep and wet. In the marina, there was money to be made by picking up lost items from the bottom, cleaning boat hulls and changing props underwater. All around it was a pretty sweet deal.

Building a 60 ft boathouse for gold mining legend Don McLeod at Secret Cove Marina

 One gorgeous summer Monday, two friends of mine return from a weekend away on their sailboat and proceed to tell me a story. It involves them at anchor in a pretty little bay and rowing to shore to explore and stretch their legs. After hiking around a bit. they come to what looks like a man made cavern that is full of water. Apparently they tried probing down to find the bottom, but couldn't touch anything down there. My friend suggested that I should take some of my dive gear over there and take a little close up peek to see if it went anywhere. It all sounded good to me. Mysterious water filled, man made holes in an island can only mean adventure and possible loot.
 A few days later, my friend takes me to this island and we anchor offshore and row in to the beach. Before too long we are standing in front of what I now assume is a mineshaft. It looks to be blasted through the rock and heading down on about a forty-five degree angle. The water is pitch black and covered in floating bits of wood and pop cans and such. Very uninviting. Pretty much the last place you want to stick your head into.
 At first, I try just putting my diving mask on and peering down the shaft, using a powerful dive light. Laying on my belly and sticking my head into the cold black water was spooky as all hell. The shaft was circular and looked to be about eight feet in diameter, but the flashlight wouldn't penetrate down too far, and I definitely didn't see a bottom. I didn't expect something like this, so I ended up not bringing a full kit of dive gear with me on this excursion. We retreated back to the sailboat and motored back to Secret Cove.
 My curiosity was on fire! Who dug this thing?, what was it for? And more importantly, was there anything of valuable down there? For a brief time I was concerned that there might be a body or two down there. but I had to stop thinking that because it didn't help matters at all. I arranged a return trip with another boat owning friend and diving pal, Dr, Michael Klein. This time I went loaded for bear with multiple tanks, an emergency pony bottle and reg set-up, multiple flashlights and a nine millimeter climbing rope to trail behind as I go into the mineshaft. When we get to the shaft, Michael protests the planned dive the way that a sane and cautious man should. I listened carefully while I got all the gear on and decided to proceed one small step at a time. Truth be told , I was scared out of my mind at the whole idea myself . Step one was to get down into the pool of water and have a look-see from there. Step two, was to toss out a lot of the wood and debris from the surface of the pool. Then I floated on the surface, fully geared up and breathing through my regulator. The shaft headed down into complete darkness giving up few new secrets. A long wooden ladder laid on the bottom and disappeared into the murk. There were a few items that people had tossed down the shaft that lay strewn down on the floor, not having fallen to the bottom. I could hear my heart pounding and my breathing getting faster. By far the loudest noise came from from inside my head. It said "Mike , this is the stupidest fucking thing you've ever done, why don't we just go home now". Apparently , I was more curious than scared because I decided to explore a bit more. I stuck my head out of the water and told Michael that I was going to go down the shaft a bit to see what I could see. His job was to play out the climbing rope that was tied to me and stand watch. He really didn't care for this plan at all as it didn't fit anywhere in his knowledge of risk management. The idea of the trailing rope was to provide a strong link back to the surface and to aid navigation in case there were multiple off shoots to the tunnel. Also it helped me in not feeling so isolated and alone as I turned to descend into the mineshaft.

Entrance to Hell                                           photo by Dr. Michael Klein

 Now let's be really. really clear here. I was as scared as I've ever been. My internal voice was screaming out, "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Another voice in behind was saying something about how cool and exciting this whole thing is. I went with the "cool and exciting" part and ignored the other, screaming in my head like a mayday call from a crashing plane.The walls of the mineshaft were rounded and creamy colored, covered in a coating of thin slime. I descended a bit at at time, straining to see ahead, hoping to see the end so that I could turn around and go back up. The curious side wanted to find some fantastic object or artifact to return with. Every time I stopped and just hung there in the dark shaft, I had to decide again, down more ,or turn around. I had no idea whether this thing was going to end in the next few feet, or in the next five hundred. I had plenty of air in multiple tanks, so the only limiting factor was my nerves, I checked my rope. Still there. Check air supply yet again. Still have lots. I drop down again, sometimes bouncing off the ceiling because of the slope of the shaft. I checked the depth gauge and it was reading sixty feet, it felt like six hundred. I worked to slow my breathing down to help calm myself, even though there was really no good reason to be calm.
 Finally. in the beam of my flashlight. the shaft  opened up into a cavern. I could see the floor, covered in gravel and small jagged rocks. There were portals to the right and to the left. Straight ahead was a smaller portal that was boarded up. Full on excitement overrode the fear. What would be down here? Old tools, or better yet did someone leave valuables down here? I hovered just above the floor of the cavern and swung my flashlight into all the corners. A cedar post in surprisingly good shape on the left hand corner. I made a mental note not to bump into it, in case the ceiling collapsed. Finally a lick of good sense worked it's way to the front of the brain pan. I decided that this was good enough for now, and that it was time to go back up. At that very moment. right when sanity clicked in, a hellish and ugly roar erupted. I had no way of knowing the direction it was coming from or what caused it, I could only see a few feet into the blackness. I was eighty six feet down vertically and about one hundred and forty feet in lengthwise. I had somehow dislodged something upstream and now an avalanche was headed my way. Short version. I just killed myself. Fuck!
 My one thought was go to the ceiling to get away from whatever was coming down the shaft. I swam up and boosted a bit of air into my vest to hold me up there. I waited, really pissed that I was going to be dead in a few seconds. I  hung up at the roof of the cavern waiting for the collapsing shaft to seal me in. Man was I choked at myself, ending up dead way down here. This really sucks.
 Too much time went by without disaster rolling into the cavern. There was still a noise coming down but not as much as before. Did the shaft seal up above? Am I still dead, just not quite yet? Over the sound of my heart crashing in my ears I heard a familiar noise. I looked up at the rock ceiling and saw a huge puddle of my air bubbles trapped in the concave rooftop. When the roof cavity was full, it would purge the air bubbles out and send them rushing up the shaft. That was the crashing noise. All the time I spent on the cavern floor looking around was loading up the ceiling with a huge air bubble the whole time. I felt a huge sense of relief. Still nervous though, I slowly let myself down at the same time peering up the shaft in case I was wrong and Death was just teasing me. I saw my rope disappear up into the black tunnel, and saw something that I really didn't want to see right about then. There was no avalanche of rock, instead the air bubbles had dislodged all the muck off the walls and a huge plume of silt descended through the shaft. The silt flowed down into all corners of the cavern and visibility went zero. Not low viz, not murky. No vision at all. A complete brown out. I went down to the floor to get my bearings and knelt there. I had two UK 800 dive lights with me. I shone the one straight into my face and could only see a faint glow. I tried the spare, same thing. The muck was so thick that the light would not penetrate it. Ugly, ugly,ugly, fuck , fuck ,fuck!
 The biggest favor that I did myself that day was to pack enough air  for two men and a horse. That was comforting. Not warm and fuzzy comforting, but just a notch above being totally screwed. The second bit of good planning ( I know your laughing now ) was the idea of dragging a rope behind me. The only sure way to navigate out of this zero visibility hell is to follow the rope. I still wasn't totally convinced on the whole avalanche/bubble theory either. It remained a possibility that there could be an obstruction above me. So back to basic training, "Breath calmly, be calm". I started pulling the rope tight and following it into the darkness, trusting that it knew the way home. I brushed beside the cedar post. I felt the turn up into the shaft, I knew where I was. I pulled gently on the rope,  even though I was now in the shaft and going up, now was not a good time for a fuck up. I ascended as calmly as I could manage. My brain just wanted to get right the fuck out of there, but my training demanded slow and controlled. Up a foot at a time. The silt out was complete and total all the way up. Finally the murk got lighter and the surface appeared above. I could see the mirage like vision of Michael staring down back at me.

The safest place to be that day, up and out                               photo by Dr.Michael Klein

I surfaced and pulled my regulator out  to tell Michael that I was fine and all was good. He was underwhelmed at the whole performance. While I was in the cavern and the bubbles were collecting in the ceiling, they had stopped coming to the surface of the opening. This is not something that a dive tender wants to see. No bubbles is no breathing, not a good sign. But then when enough air bubbles to fill a mini van come gushing up a few minutes later, that's also cause for concern and not really something that is good for your friends nerve endings. Michael was gracious in his forgiveness for scaring the crap out of him, and I was mighty happy to be out that special little slice of watery claustrophobic hell.
Michael dove with me on many great adventures after that. Not one of them involved  water filled mine shafts.
This is officially the dumbest thing I ever did.