Marina gives up its treasure
Well maybe not every mans treasure, but it was made of copper.
After accidentally knocking the top of a heat exchanger on a steam driven boat overboard, LESAC were asked if they could help in retrieving the item.
A few brave people turned out to enter the black and murky shark infested waters (well the media can do it, why can't we), of Long Eaton Marina on a sunny Wednesday evening to find this valuable piece of nostalgic engineering.
Of the four members that turned up only two were stupid brave enough to actually enter the water.
Andy and Colin donned their kit and entered the uninviting corner of Long Eaton Marina, whilst Ann and myself expertly
supervised form the walkway, and David the boat owner looked lovingly at the place he last saw his kettle heat exchanger
lid disappearing into the gloom.
It was only a few seconds before the guys that had entered the water realised why we had not, the viz was less than zero. Years of debris and fish poo had left a thick black silt on the bottom. Finding the object was going take a miracle.
Andy wasted no time in making the situation far worse, disturbing hundreds of years of gloopy muck that until then had laid quietly on the bottom, consuming all that ventured down there.
Colin made a couple of attempts to lift an adjacent boat out of the water by getting underneath it and blowing out hard, no luck though. He did manage to find a cup and a steel measuring tape, but the heat exchanger top remained elusive.
Andy found a CD and a keep net, then Colin found Andy's DV, but fortunately left it where it was, in his mouth. There were more finds, an old barbecue, broken glass, tyres and bits of wood.
Then the excitement came, Colin had found something big, and it was clear it not been down there long and it was attached to something, it was Andy's foot.
It looked as though the search was going to be fruitless, despite the superb supervision from the walkway, and the various instruments used to conduct the search, (its the first time I have seen a Garden Rake used for an underwater search!), it looked like the kettle heat exchanger lid was going to remain just a memory.
We were just about to call it a day, when Colin made one final descent to the bottom a metre below, actually to the point that Andy had been searching all evening, and triumphantly surfaced holding out the lid of the heat exchanger like Excaliber as it came out of the lake
Yes he had found it, all the effort was well worth it, another resounding triumph for LESAC.
I am sure it would not have happened without the expert directions from the walkway. All that remained was for Andy to tip out the black smelly water from his suit, get rid of the stench of rotting vegetation and go to the pub.
Well done guys, another good PR exercise for the club.
Pete Church