The story starts last year with the ongoing war we've been waging against the beavers that plug, dam, divert, generally bamboozle lake operations here.
Plus, there's a pipe that's been missing its strainer for months and the contractor hired to put it on 5 months ago dropped the ball.
Who ya gonna call: Farm Team!
Flashback to the eve of our clandestine operation:
Surveying all our rented scuba gear.
Double checking everything against my old textbook.
I am certified as a Advanced NAUI diver, but it's been 22 years since I've taken a plunge.
Flynn seems to trust me for some strange reason and gets a quick briefing on what will be his first experience scuba diving experience.
He's a quick study.
The equipment was procured from my old divemaster and when I told him what my intentions were, his eyes grew big as he told me of how his days almost came to an end years ago when he'd been hired to help with a drain overflow problem in Russell county. One second he was working to clear the pipe, the next he was being sucked into the 6' wide pipe. His eyes really bugged out when we figured out we were talking about the same lake!
Flynn says he's still ready to rock and roll.
First duty: installing the new strainer Flynn fabricated.
At this point, we're still feeling Gung-ho!
Note that we are not in the 60' F (yes we temped it) water.
May the polar dive begin.
We take turns going under, it's so stinking cold! Wishing we'd gotten wet suits with hoods.
One job done, we drive to the other problem area and proceed to remove metal grates off the intake pipes. The beavers had been shoving sticks into the pipes and the newly installed grates were then packed with mountains of mud and sticks making the problem umpteen times worse than before. Usually, we could wade out and pull sticks out, but now, the water level had risen so much, that even working fro a boat wouldn't work.
Time flies by, we don't realize how long we've been in the water.
Sitting in the truck, trying to warm up, it only dawns on me later that hypothermia had set in. When we get wrapped up in a project, we tend to forget about everything else. Here's the video that proves it:
We did it!
And, victory!
