[Winnipesaukee Divers]

But, why on earth would you ever want to encounter one of the big ones? Legend has it the really big ones reside well below a hundred feet. In the ship’s library on board my boat, I have a book that has a story in it about an encounter the Navy hard hat divers had while deep diving off their base on Diamond Island in the late sixties.

I was rafted up one day with my dive buddy Diver Don and our families off the sand bar at West Alton. While we were having lunch together I pulled out the book and read the passage to the group gathered around the table in my cabin. Everyone was very intent on hearing the details about the last fateful dive the hard hatters made just off the northwest side of Rattlesnake Island in the famed “deep hole”. The purpose of their dive was for testing visual colors in deep water. When the two divers reached the bottom at the 160' level, they settled deep into the silt. As they struggled to set up the test they encountered several large eels, as they described them. They were approximately 14’ long and more than a foot in diameter. The eels became very aggressive as the divers tried to defend themselves and the divers had to call for extraction. Once back on the dive barge the divers were in a fit of hysteria and refused to do another dive there. The story claims that this incident ended the deep water diving experiments on the lake by the Navy and they just packed up and left, leaving all their gear on the bottom, most of which is still there today.

After lunch we prepared to do our dive on the edge of the sandbar where it drops to 30 feet. As we explored along the shelf, we came upon an old tree. As I turned it over I was hoping to find some kind of treasure but instead I disturbed a 3-foot eel. My daughter Beth and Diver Don reeled back in shock as the eel swam out of sight. Both were new divers and were petrified by eels. On the return course back to the boat I was running low on air and needed to conserve it to avoid a long swim back on the surface. So I swam up the sand embankment to the shallower waters. I watched as Beth and Don continued to search the muddy bottom for bottles as they made their way back. Being totally bored in the 6 foot depths of the sand I found a tree trunk about 6" in diameter and about 10' long, After debarking it, the white wood glistened. Thinking it felt like a large javelin, I decided to chuck it in the direction of Beth and Don knowing full well it would never make it down near them.... Well, I was mistaken... I as I heaved it, it corkscrewed through the water and looked for all the world like the famed 14' long eel as it passed in front of them. They let out a scream I could hear 30' away under water as they both bolted for the surface dropping all their goodies. At the surface Beth was screaming in hysteria and Don was making a wake as he swam for his boat. When I got back on the boat I asked them what they thought about the over sized javelin I found, completely forgetting about the story I had just read to them earlier. I could tell you what their comments were, but Webmaster Don would just edit it out.

So, if its eels you want I know where you can find them, but its cold dark and deep there.
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