BONNE TERRE MINE
November 27, 2010
The following day I
got my dive gear ready to dive a famous mine complex called Bonne Terre
Mine. This place is a commercially run
business with a flooded mine that has all kinds of extended mine systems
underground. It is a pretty interesting
place but there are a lot of people that come here to dive this place. It is a recreational diving facility so it
works out pretty well for all levels of diving
and they also teach cavern courses for people interested in learning
about the first stage of cave diving.
They also got a lot
of rules governing these dive trails that they outline and you have to dive
certain trails before you are able to advance on to the next class of dive
circuit that you can complete. I was not sure when I was going to come back
here so I went on trails 11, 12, 14 which are the first three people have to
do. Also make sure you bring your dive
book back or else you will have to dive these first three trails again….weird…
So I get signed up
with 12 other people in my group and we head down a dry shaft to a passage room
the took us to the dock site and the floating dive center they got set up. They
had the mine lit up and it was a nice operation with tanks and a fill station
right at the waterline.
The water was crystal
clear which was nice too but we were not allowed to bring lights into the dive
as they were not allowed. We stride into the water and perform a safety check
in shallow water to make sure everything is working. We than take a tour around
some of the artifacts that were left behind when the mine flooded like a drill
piece, stairs, and other machinery. We made a circuit around some passage and
came back to where we started. We all
get out and an hour later perform our second dive deeper around some pillers
and into a truss system. The Ambient
light peered into the passages we went through which was interesting and the
artifacts of a mine that use to operate were still present.
The third dive was
very similar to the second dive but with the water at 55 degrees and spending
pretty much all day in the water, I started to get a bit chilly. Once we ended
the three dives I packed up and left back in a snowstorm to Chicago just before
the snow got really bad.
Overall it is a nice
place to visit if you want to see some history and go diving in a overhead
environment but it is not on my list of places to visit due to how
commercialized it is. Is it worth a visit?. Absolutely!
pictures from :
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