Devil’s Bridge dive
The fable, which the bridge is named after, is supposedly provided by the Devil to enable a poor widow to reach her cow on the other side of the river.
In return for this, the Devil was to acquire the soul of the first being to cross the bridge.
The poor widow’s only other possession was a small dog.
On provision of the bridge, she picked the little dog up and threw it across the bridge, thus thwarting the Devil and saving her own soul.
Due to the kind lady sacrificing her dog, Alf decided it was safe so organised a dive trip as there had been no rain for a few days. This meant the site would be diveable.
The day dawned, bright sunshine, a clear blue sky
Arriving at about 8:30 the early birds started setting up the gazebo and club base. until realising that we would have to move. In between that decision the first of us kitted up and decided to head down for the first dive of the day.
Alf gave a very specific briefing enabling divers to safely enter the river and not get swept away with strong surface current.
A brief summary of the dive
- Get kitted up and put fins on in the shallows.
- After the buddy check, dive down quickly to the large tree stump.
- Pull yourself over the stump and down behind it out of the current.
- Keeping close to the bed swim downstream under the bridge (careful to check above for jumpers).
- When the river bed deepens, swim round the pool in a clockwise direction.
- Once the circumnavigation has been completed head back upstream to the log.
- The exit is a mad scramble over the log a lot of strong finning into the shallows and catch your breath.
The water was stunningly clear giving us a good 6/7 meters of visibility. We swam slowly round the initial area which comprised of gravel beds in between ice cream scooped rocks streaked with green. There was little to no plant life but plenty of fish to be seen. Eels regularly swam past on a regular basis, trout and salmon slept in nooks and crannies. Visibility was remarkable, considering we were diving in a flowing river, about 8/9 meters
By the time we had completed the first dive several more club members had arrived and we were moving the gazebo, BBQ, tables, kit, etc, down hill to the beach to claim a place among the ever increasing crowds.
As we set up the next set of divers entered the water beginning the shuttle run of dives.
During the day most of the dives went off remarkably smoothly except for one where some other visitors leapt of the rocks narrowly missing our diving team.
The day was finished off with some swimming and a relaxing BBQ.
Thanks to Alf for a great social diving event.
