Niagara River Drift Dive

[elan]

We were going to try it as our local dive shop stated it was an all levels dive. However the other months river dive was Advanced/drift so looked like a misprint but the counter guy at the store said it would be fine?/??. We are quite new and my son is only 11.

What is the difficulty?

Personally I would bot recommend this dive to a novice. The river has quite a current in places and you have to have good buoyancy skills, able to carry an smb or diveflag and not separate from your buddy. " you will be fine" seems to be prevaling principal amoungst the local shops and that tactic is scary for me.

If everything goes well you will be fine. If something happens and say one of uou got cought by something on the bottom you get separated. There is no way you can fin back to help your son in case of an issue. So you have to have solid buoyancy skills. If you have them and you feel that in the case of separation your both can finish the dive solo, deploy an SMB and navigate to the shore with overhead boat traffic then you can do the dive. YMMV

 

[Dr Dog]

Personally I would bot recommend this dive to a novice. The river has quite a current in places and you have to have good buoyancy skills, able to carry an smb or diveflag and not separate from your buddy. " you will be fine" seems to be prevaling principal amoungst the local shops and that tactic is scary for me.

If everything goes well you will be fine. If something happens and say one of uou got cought by something on the bottom you get separated. There is no way you can fin back to help your son in case of an issue. So you have to have solid buoyancy skills. If you have them and you feel that in the case of separation your both can finish the dive solo, deploy an SMB and navigate to the shore with overhead boat traffic then you can do the dive. YMMV

Or what if you have an ooa, or your fins fall off, maybe the water dries up. or you run into a river warp and end up on the brink...
ALL DIVING is dangerous. There are rules to follow, this is no different

 

[mikeycanuk]

Water is pretty warm there. I had it in mid 80's last dive there. I was actually thinking about a 3 mm when I go next

Did a test dive of our travel gear last Civic Monday with our 3mm vs the 7mm we usually wear and by minute 50 I was getting real cold, my son was out 20mins earlier. This was in Gullivers lake btw! Hopefully the weather doesn't stay in the 20's for August or else my son's diving for the year will be done after we get back from the Brac.
Have to look into Chippawa Creek.

If anyone see's a family with a 12yr old in a green Zuma BCD it's us! Our son is a natural in the water. In fact in our first open water dive he was separated from us within 2mins thanks to a careless Mexican instructor. He had a great 20mins by himself, my wife....not so much.

 

[Dr Dog]

Incidentally diving @ Navy Hall in Niagara On the Lake Sat am about 9 to 10 am, depending on when i get up

 

[Dr Dog]

Dove The Netherby Boat ramp again this past weekend. Current was moving this week.( 1+ knot) Quite a few fish this time. Vis was less than 10 feet with a lot of floating sediment

 

[patpicos]

Dove The Netherby Boat ramp again this past weekend. Current was moving this week.( 1+ knot) Quite a few fish this time. Vis was less than 10 feet with a lot of floating sediment

You kept missing the bigger fish too! Loved seeing my first muskie. was ~2 ft long.

Again, found a good amount of golf balls. I really enjoyed this dive even though it was quite shallow. We need to find a charter to bring us to the middle of the river