Locks Maintenance-Seattle

I was down at the Chittendon Lock in Seattle this morning. the smaller lock is closed for annual maintenance. the Corps of Engineers called in the Navy divers for some help. A big pile of silt had built up outside the downstream gate and the emergency gates had some problems. Shot 1 is the Navy dive boat. If you look carefully in shot 2, there is a diver sitting to the left of a red seat in full dive gear and hooked up to the air system. He is the "emergency diver". The entire time the other two are down, he ahs to be ready to go over immediately in case a diver gets in trouble. the last shot is the two working divers finally surfacing. They used shovels, a high pressure water hose and big suction pumps to stir the silt and then pump it over near dam spillway. Those two divers were underwater working for 4 solid hours without surfacing. The water there is about 20-22 feet deep. I don't have much underwater experience, but seems to me that 4 hours underwater shoveling, wrestling suction lines and repairing the door must require these guts to be in pretty damned good shape.

My first ship in the Navy was a saturation diving platform. Those guys were some of the toughest sob's I have ever met.

We went out and back through there this AM for our sea trial. The big lock, that is, not the small one obviously.

TT-saw you coming back in. How did the new electronics work?

THD said:

TT-saw you coming back in. How did the new electronics work?

Click to expand...

Awesome. Mission accomplished!

Interesting thread. Thanks for posting the pics and the story. Those Ballard locks are fun to visit because you can get so close to the action.

They really are fun to watch. I've spent a few afternoons over there after becoming sick of working on my boat and needing a break. My goal is to always be the audience for the spectacle, never the subject.

Locks are the best place to visit in Seattle that are rarely in the media package when discussing the visit!