North Bay Scuba Club

Diving Talon Chutes

 

 

The North Bay Scuba Club has been diving Talon Chutes for almost 20 years. I have been exploring these dark quick waters for more than 25 years. My four boys and I would camp on the cliffs over looking the chutes and during the day we would explore the many pools and currents that make up these most exciting waters. One of the more dangerous and wonderful spots in the middle of the Chutes was a round bath tub shaped pool half way up the falls that the boys were all able to seat around in, like a Jacuzzi, with the fast cold water blasting over their heads. Two of the boys were smaller than the other two, so the fast water really covered them with foam and rapid flowing dark water. I used to try and sit with them in this pot of excitement, but the swift water would some time take my breath away and I would make an excuse to get out of their spot of fun. At this point in time, I had only just been certified. I still did not own a real wet suit, a reg., any kind of BC or tank. I would rent a tank and reg. from the Club. I had a good pair of fins and an old yellow mask with a great round face plate. I still have the dive mask. The fins have rotted away. My first solo dives into the fast dark cold waters of Talon Chutes were the must exciting dives that I will ever make in my life. I have dived with many kinds of sharks, been in the bowels of deep ship wrecks, swam in currents that would be hard to walk in on solid ground, if that's possible. Swam to far ocean depths where one mistake could be fatal, have had to be the instrument in the saving of people's lives.

But Talon will always be remembered for it's excitement. I didn't have any gauges for depth or air consumption, for direction or temp. If your tank became low on air, you knew, you could not get any air, at this point you pulled the yoke for the "J" valve. I carried a jack knife in the pocket of my shorts. My thermal protection was a pair of jean shorts and a tee shirt. Sometimes I wore a pair of my wife's kitchen gloves, hoping that my hands would be kept warm and free from cuts. Dropping from the surface to ten feet was another thrill that is hard to explain. At first you have a little light and than you're into darkness. You dare to explore a couple of feet more, but more darkness. Again you swim deeper, the bottom appears and objects come into view.

Rocks and wood chips!! But you actually can see maybe five feet in front of you. Above is pure obscurity. Your world at this time and place is a small circular ball, with a brown mysterious light giving you a little vision into the next few feet of your dive. The current would never let you really know which direction you were swimming or which direction you should be going. I would sometime pickup little pieces of bark and let them flow from my hand to tell direction. This never really worked. I always seemed to go in the wrong direction. I know that if my heart had been in a sorry condition during my early times in Talon Chutes, my life would be in a sorry shape at my present age. It was on the second solo dive into Talon's mystery that I started to find treasures of untold greatness. Fishing lures by the dozen, everywhere I looked; a couple of Timex watches, three tackle boxes, CTC anchors all over the place. Rope and fishing line that meant no good for anyone. I had two Club tanks with me and each one was sucked dry during the two exciting dives that I was able to do this day. After you pulled the "J" valve and swam around for another few moments, you surfaced and there was no way to tell how much air was left. My son Mike, sucked through a "J" valve once and he was still at twenty feet when he realized his tank was definitely empty. He survived and went on to be the best explorer and collector of artifacts that I have ever dived with.. It wasn't until my fourth dive that I made it all the way up to the falls. Now this was excitement. Above you were millions of tiny silvery flashing bubbles. My first impulse was to swim up and be amongst them.. Hey I didn't know. As soon as I was able to reach up and actually touch some of the bubbles, away I went. The first time I was instantly sucked down and backward, on my back, almost to the bottom. Bubbles weren't going to get the best of me. The next time I hit the swift swirling water, I was immediately pushed to the surface and sent downstream without control or any sense of direction. I just wanted to breath and get out of the water somehow. When I finally was able to stabilize and knew that life can be fun, I could hear the boys yelling and diving into the water, hoping to get their old man back to shore. After experiencing the strength of the falls, I decided to swim up to them, but stay on the bottom with a couple of large rocks locked in my arms. This was a smart move. I actually got well under the falls. In this very peaceful place, the current was nil and the vis was a good twenty feet. There were fish all over the place. Pickerel, pike, bass and great large whitefish. In the distance you could see foot long trout, too shy to come any closer to investigate a four limbed white shape in jeans and tee shirt. editor RFslats