Burleigh Bulletin

[tinman]

GTA fans of Burleigh Falls take heart: my buddy & I shovel out an 8 foot snow drift just to be able to trudge into the parking lot this past week. You have to park on the side road as the graders have done their magic and built a castle of snow at the parking lot entry.

Like a little current??? After shovelling we found a rippin' current and bailed out to Lakefield to putz around in the Trent (temp. 37 oF, easy access behind Tim Horton's near Arena parking lot).

We decided to come back this Saturday with a 100 feet of line to tie off at the back-up exit in case we get blown off the cable coming back into the bay. Three weeks ago temp. was still at 30 oF & great viz (30 ft) - this week's heat wave (+10 o C!) will make some difference in water temp. and a big difference in current strength - stay tuned, it should be an exciting ride...

P.S. If you find me impaled at the pick-up sticks, bolt a nifty coleman lantern on the tree at the water's edge so I can spook the next night dive class of Advanced OW students....

 

[weight_for_me]

I wondered how long it would take to post a trip report after this weekends "heat wave".
Just took the battery out of the computer to replace it....time to get the vis done on the tanks....
Randy...

 

[canuckdiver]

geeze! that's a little warmer than what we were recording at the surface of lake ontario. Sounds like you had fun!

 

[tinman]

two weeks makes. Dove Burleigh Saturday. Parking lot is clear of snow, lake is clear of ice, including back entry. That's the good news...

Remember flag poling on a St Lawrence wreck up line? When you hit the cable, you will find out how good your trim is!

This site is not suitable for wet suit divers at the moment. Not only has it only warmed up to 33 oF, but more importantly if you face an equipment problem and have to surface, the current is the strongest I've seen and you are likely taking a ride to the island unless you can get out of the current by heading East and coming into the back entry. Not a crisis for a drysuit diver but I wouldn't want to try it in a wetsuit - two divers got stuck out on the island last year...

On the upside, the fishermen and boat traffic are none existent and the viz even on an overcast day was 20 feet.

First fish I've seen here since last Nov/Dec - 2-3 ft Walleye! Yah, we get excited about seeing anything alive in our waters....

 

[Tom R]

Sure beats the 36 degrees we got on the Kinghorn this weekend ;-)

Tom

 

[tinman]

I would have thought the St. Lawrence had warmed up some more. Anything below 40 is DAMN cold...

For enquiring minds, I've posted pixs of Burleigh, we have extra operators standing by to booked group tours....
http://groups.msn.com/TridentUnderwaterClub/burleighfallsmar03.msnw?Page=Last

 

[tinman]

and wetsuits start springing up everywhere. Well before you get too excited, Burleigh has only "warmed" up to 34 oC - squeezed in a quick dive Sat. AM. With warm weather this week maybe it will get to 40 oC. Current has subsided a little - still may require some to hand over hand it up the cable. Lot's of fish in the shallows, unfortunately that means the fishermen and hooks aren't far behind....

For the more adventurous among you, I'm trying to confirm if the "Caber toss" log is still stuck near the second falls (current was holding a 20 ft log vertically against the wall). As a good Scotsman, I'm going to try and hunt it down this weekend - I promise not to "toss" it at my buddy - he's got the pony...

 

[wetman]

A few hours after you were in i too was in the area:

http://www.sitecode.com/~shoughton/Burleigh/index.htm