Mine Quest Project 2007

Ocean Quest Mine Quest Project 2007
By Arron Bruce


Towards the end of last year I was invited on a trip to explore the flooded Iron Ore Mines of Bell Island, Newfoundland. Having been living and working in Egypt for the past 10 years it was a good opportunity to dive in an environment that was definitely not what I was use to. Although I was cave trained and an ex Navy diver who had dived in all sorts of conditions and weather throughout the years, this was definitely going to be a trip to be remembered. Unfortunately at the time I did not realize it would be remembered for some excellent diving and an unfortunate accident.

On the evening of the 28th January, I found myself at a snow covered St Johns airport trying to keep warm. After a grueling 24 hours of traveling, delayed flights and snowbound airports we were at our final destination. We were picked up by Steve Moore who is the operations manager for Ocean Quest who was the organizers of the expedition. After a quick beer it was off to bed for some well needed sleep. The next day was the first proper day of the expedition. The rest of the team were arriving throughout the day as most had been delayed due to the snow storms we were experiencing. We got kit sorted, gas filled and analyzed, stages rigged, lines marked up and generally made sure everything was ready to be transported over to Bell Island. In the afternoon we went over to the island to recce the site and see exactly what we were going to do to achieve the goals we had planned. One of the retired miners gave us a tour of the mine shaft as well as a history lesson about the islands heritage due to the iron ore that had been mined since the 1800’s


We all put a hand in to see how warm the water was. “Oh that’s warmer than I thought” said Phil. “Its about 8’c”

“How fu**ing cold?” was my response. This was going to be hard going on the extremities. My last dive in the Red Sea had been 20’c and I thought that was cold after two hours in the water!!! There was a definite buzz in the air as we left the mine and headed back to the lodge to make our final plans for the next day.

The next three days were spent exploring the mine complex in small teams of both OC and CCR divers. There were 3 Inspiration/Evolutions, 2 Megs and 1 ‘Boris with the rest of the 10 person team on OC. Amazingly nearly everything that was transported from all over the continent arrived and was in working order, so very little hampered the tasks assigned to each team for the dive.


I decided on my Meg for the trip as I was not quite sure what size cylinders would be available. The unit worked really well and having the HUD really made a difference to the way I dived. I kept the backlight switched off on the handsets and used the HUD for the entire dive. As all my dive partners were CCR divers, I could just listen to the solenoid and confirm the Po2. The only major issue I had was with the mouthpiece. I put a Jax mouthpiece on the unit, glued it in place and used a tiewrap to ensure a good seal. This worked great in warm water, but as soon as we got into the cold water, the plastic slightly shrank making the mouthpiece loose. Little did I realize how loose until my loop got knocked from my mouth. We had just started a new line with a reel of 1000 ft attached and were untying the knot when my buddy knocked my mouthpiece. The mouthpiece remained in my mouth but the loop floated above my head. It was only after two breaths of water whilst trying to undo a knot did I realize what was happening. I grabbed my bailout, closed the loop and made my exit, which was only about 100 feet away. Once back at the kitting up area I stripped the unit down and found no water in the canister and a slight dribble in the exhale counterlung. Not bad going!! We were fortunate enough to have the local TV and radio stations present and they were very keen to get everyone’s thoughts on the project, especially as one of the team originated from Bell Island. We also had our own film crew who were documenting the entire expedition for a future Discovery channel program. We managed to lay over 3000 feet of line in conditions that ranged from “swimming in space” to “you can see more with your eyes closed”. Dive times averaged an hour and a half for those of us who were sane to three hours for the guys laying lines at a depth of 50m. Everyone was amazed at how big this mine was and how many artifacts lay all over the bottom. We later learnt that the mine closed down whilst the miners were on their Christmas break, never to reopen, hence the equipment still in place.


The Saturday evening saw us dancing the night away in St Johns varied nightclubs. It had started to rain very heavily, so by the time we left the nightclub to get the compulsory pizza for the taxi ride home the streets was flooded to calf level. This was to play havoc with the visibility in the mine and put everyone’s skills to the test.

Having had the Sunday off to recover and prepare for the rest of the week, everyone was keen and eager to get in the water, problem was the mine had ideas of its own. Due to the rain the previous day, the water level had risen 2 meters and had turned into a red cloud. We all kitted up and waded into the red soup ready to explore. Steve and I had decided to carry on and lay more line to the west of the mainline at the second jump. The visibility was non existent at best and the only reason I knew Steve was in front of me was his constant swearing about the cold and sh*t viz. Things were not going to plan and we managed to miss the jump and carry on past it to the next one. Having done the jump and realizing our mistake, we returned to the mainline and made our way to the correct jump to start again. Murphy was diving with us today and decided to tangle our small spool reel up and then make it jam. We deployed another reel and were just about to set off when one of the team came down with one of the concrete sinkers to secure the gold line to and dropped it right next to us. This reduced the non existent viz to the clarity of Nutella and start off a chain of laughter that lasted until we exited the water. Having achieved absolutely nothing in the hour and a half we were in the water for, we decided that Murphy had won and made our way out. The two of us exited and were making our way up the slope with a cup of hot chocolate when we heard shouts that one of the divers had gone missing. We dropped our kit and raced down to the waters edge to find out what was going on and to get organized for a search. Unfortunately it turned out to be a body recovery. I will not go in to details about what happened, but that day we lost Joe Steffen.
We all contemplated what had just happened to our friend and team member with a mixture of sadness and vulnerability. Phone calls were made to loved ones and family just so they knew that you were OK when the events of that day eventually made it onto the news channel.

We were given the go ahead to carry on with the expedition and knowing that Joe would have wanted us to, we unanimously decided to crack on and do it for Joe. The next day we ALL got in the water to get over the psychological barrier that had appeared since Joe’s death. The media were present again in an even bigger capacity trying to get all the gory details of the previous day, getting in the way and generally making an arse of themselves. Not quite what you want, but one to be expected. All went well and we managed to focus our selves on the job at hand. We only had two more days left so we all put in an all out effort to lay as much line as we could. By the end of the second week we had lay over 2 kilometers of line throughout various passageways down to a depth of 50m. We had found water pumps, railway carriages, railway lines and enough shovels to fill a B&Q superstore.


The team at Ocean Quest are making permanent fixtures at the mine site and hope to have it open to the public by the end of the year. This is a truly amazing dive site that puts divers and equipment to the test. It is not for the faint hearted, but it can make an ideal training ground for those wishing to expand their cave training to different environments.

The blog site gives another perspective of what went on in the trip. All in all it was a superbly organized trip with a bunch of divers who were there to dive, not to show who had the biggest ego. It is very rare these days to have a group of people who all said that the company was as good as the diving, let’s hope it may continue. The mine diving is only half of what Ocean Quest has to offer. There are some amazingly preserved ww2 wrecks that range from 20m to 50m depth just off of Bell Island as well as older wrecks around the coast, diving with whales and ice diving.


Discuss this trip report HERE