Monday, February 5, 2007

We will go on...

After the accident, the dive team and our wonderful volunteers huddled together in a room trying to come to grips with what just happened.

Shock, denial, profound sense of loss and overwhelming sadness - the feelings and emotions that we were experiencing are impossible to describe even now, one day later. Everyone's reaction to an event of that magnitude is different and we all cope and deal with the aftershocks in unique ways. Being together with our teammates and volunteers helped a lot as did a prayer led by a priest from a local church.

The support from our volunteers, Bell Island Historical Society and the Mayor of the Bell Island was unequivocal. As soon as the news spread, people started to arrive to say few words of support to each of us, shake our hands, bring us food and offer to help in any way they could. As a team, it helped us tremendously and we can't thank them enough.

We spent the rest of the day at our lodge, all together. Few hours later, as the reality of what happened sunk in, the question was raised about the future of the project, whether or not it was to continue.

The vote from the dive team was unanimous - we wanted to continue. And we also had a vote from Bell Island Historical society supporting that decision. We wanted to do it for Joe, for the people of Bell Island who made us feel like we were their family and for ourselves as we all believed that the project could be successful despite the adversity.

So it was decided that we would carry one and expand on the tasks completed in Day 6 which were extending the main line to 60 meters and photographing the pump area. Below are some shots from Day 6 - all artifacts are from the pump area (short distance from main line at 115 ft (35 meters)) and further away on the East deep line.






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