snork 2

snork 2: a lesson learned(?)

manuel and i went out for a second round. i decided on a location: log boom park. on the map, for some reason, they call it tracy owen park.
it's right up there at the top of the lake.

we donned our shit and headed out.
the water temperature had risen from last week by 3 degrees to 65.
it was still ball-wrenching, but slightly less so.

just looking at our initial entry off of some docks sticking out there, i thought the water was exceedingly deep.
but diving down, we found that its only about 6 to 8 feet deep.
the water here is just really fucking murky. you can barely see past an arm's length. going out further, to where the depths get to be about 20 feet (which was our max depth), you dive down into the brown muck, brown turns to black and the temp probably drops 10 degrees, then BAM! you're about 6 inches from ramming your mask into the silty bottom.
visibility gets a lot better at that last foot for some reason. its almost like a cloudy oil-slick floating from about 1 foot from the bottom. once you penetrate it, you're good to go.

all that was down there was a shitload of seaweed. i hate calling it seaweed, cuz i know its not the ocean, but i don't know what else to call it. maybe i should do some research. anyway. that shit grows to be about 6 feet tall, when the waters got deeper than, say, 10 - 15, all that disappeared and it was just 4 inches of gross-ass silt that prevailed.
but here and there you'd see divots punched out in the silt. at first i couldn't figure it out, but then after a few dives i realized...
clams.
most were about 4 inches long. some rested on the silt, others only had about a half-inch of the pointy side of the shell exposed. the divots must either be from clam movement or removal by clammers.
i snagged one. manuel held onto it for the rest of our journey.

and, as always, my ass had to find a golf ball.
i tell you, that shit just happens. don't know why.
i didn't even find any beer bottles this time around.

so the murkiness kept us from fully enjoying our trip out there. my guess is that the flow of the sammamish river (refer to the map) keeps things all mixed up.
that factory might have something to do with it too.

so shitty visibility prompted us to check out the rusted, abandoned gravel barge that's been sitting at the top of the lake for as long as i can remember.
i tried to find a link to it on the ol' internet for those of you whose memory needs prompting, but i came up emptyhanded.
maybe i'll get it in a couple of days and post it.

manuel and i took a swim out to the barge and realized it was mountable.
on the northside facing the shore was a steel-wire tether that held it a-ground.
with a bit of persuading, a rather large bouy, also floating alongside the barge was pushed up to the the vessel, where we shimmied up on the rusty beast.
we rounded the stern where there were 2 6-volt batteries and a grape gatorade.
other than that. nothing but rust and birds.

but i have to tell you the formation of the barge.
the port and starburd sides had walls about 8 feet high.
the walls ran all the way around the ship with a 15-foot door opening on the starburd side. inside the walls there was nothing there but remnants of gravel that may have been formerly transported up and down the lake. but now, it looked like a tennis court.
when outsdie the walls, and walking on the sides, there were buttresses that we had to fling our fins around while holding onto the buttress. we wanted to check out the aft, cuz there was a lifepreserver sticking up over there, so we started around the buttresses. i led the way.
at about the third buttress, i look up to see a boat slowly inching out from behind the barge's aft. i see "eriff" and go, "fuck".

i yell and wave to manuel, "GO BACK! GO BACK!"
but it was too late.
the kenmore sheriff's speed boat was now in full view and the two men on the boat were flashing their blue lights at us.

personally, this felt like something out of the movies.
where you have a bank robber trying to escape out of a window.
and just as he gets out onto the window sill, BLAT! the searchlights go up and the fucker's caught with his back to the wall.

that's exactly how i felt.
crap.

the sheriffs asked us how we got up there.
"we climbed up(, dumbasses)"

they had us jump down into the water. maybe a 15-foot jump.
manuel splashed down first and i followed.
we climbed up onto the boat by the motor.

they had us go into the cabin where they sped off about 50 feet from the barge and idled.
here came the lecture...

"you know what you look like out there with only your heads sticking out of the water?"

"no."

"ducks. you know what people in boats like to do when they see ducks?"

"no."

"they like to drive at them and watch them fly away. but i doubt you two will be able to do that."

blah. blah. blah.
more shit spouted.
warnings of propellor lacerations, hypothermia, crampin up, and whatever the hell else you can think of.

so apparently we did two things wrong.
1) you're only lawfully allowed to swim 50 feet away from the shore unless accompanied and supervised by someone with a boat.
2) trespassing. that barge is owned by some dumb motherfucker, and we should know better than to climb aboard.

fuck that.

so they leveled with us:
we give them all our correct information and they only slap a fine on us for being too far out in the water.
otherwise, when they radio our shit in, and it doesn't come back with good results, they'll take us to jail for a day.
i had to work in two hrs. so it wasn't much of an option.

so we gave them what they wanted to hear.
although they did fine us $66 each, they weren't total asses.
they did try to give us options where we could explore the lake within 50 feet of the shore.
and he did say there's good diving spots out there.

it was kinda funny though. they asked us if we knew how cold the water was.
"yup. 65." (i looked at my watch.)
they told us it was too deep out there.
"uh. only 20 feet." (i looked at my watch.)
owned.

the guy that wasn't driving the boat seemed like he was just on a ridealong and trying to be a know-it-all.
so i gave it back to him. ha!
he was nice though.
manuel was freezing his balls off by the open cabin door so they gave him a towel.
after slapping the infraction on us, they dropped us off at the docks that we started out at.
...they thought we couldn't have handled the swim back.
i'm not saying that their ride wasn't appreciated, but i think we could have made it. bitches.
so 66 dollars poorer we headed back home.
my bad, manuel.
if there's a next time, you get to choose.

manuel did happen to take some pictures before our run-in with the law.
i'm sure he'll get them posted up in due time.
i'll link to them when i get the chance.