Steve Lewis- Tech Diver Training
The volunteer team added to the workplace infrastructure yesterday and today.
The plans call for a boardwalk down to the water’s edge and an entry platform on the water’s surface so that divers can get into the water without silting things out.
Unlike the vertical or near vertical shafts found in many mines, the iron ore seam on Bell Island slopes at a roughly ten degree angle.
During past exploration, the dive teams getting into the water and beginning their dives had to wade for quite a distance before being able to float themselves and their kit. At the end of a “workday” the visibility in the water column from around three metres to the surface could be zero.
This slope, and the average height of the mine workings — approximately three metres/ten feet — makes for a slow descent and ascent… If you recall your High-school trigonometry and sine, cosine, tangent calculations, getting to a depth of 40 metres (130 feet and around the maximum for most of our planned exploration) requires a swim of approximately 230 metres / 750 feet.