Tony's Dive Blog

Bowscale Tarn April 23^rd 2008.

As members of my diving club will know, I rarely visit conventional dive sites. I was brought up to diving on the adventures of Lloyd Bridges as Mike Nelson in Sea Hunt. I seek dives that will provide me with a bit of underwater adventure. In my early days, this led to me being a part of the Cave Diving Group and investigating sea dives that no one I knew had visited before. Apart from the technical side of things, I have not evolved and still seek adventure as a major element of my diving. In a walking guide to the Lake District Northern Fells I found a description of Bowscale Tarn in which it stated could be found freshwater herrings.

I looked up the site on the internet and found a surface survey done in 1953, a dive report carried out in 1963 and a reference to Wordsworth and a poem he wrote. It was called ‘Feast of Brougham Castle’. In it are mentioned two immortal fish that live in the tarn and wait on the shepherd Lord Clifford. The dive was recorded as being 45 ft and rocky in places with cliff faces. No fish were seen but lots of hatched cheronomids (?)  and caddis fly.  Further reports were about Victorian gentlemen taking their lady friends up there to view the site and a base called The Mill Inn to investigate.

It was going to be a carry in of one and a half miles to a height of480 m. I have a long standing friend, Dave Hughes who used to be an outdoor pursuits instructor, like myself, and in a moment of weakness he agreed to carry in for me. This was arranged for April 23^rd 2008. The forecast was rain in the morning with fine weather in the afternoon.

After a salad sandwich lunch we started the walk in. Luckily I had my trekking poles as I found it hard with 13k of lead and a 10l tank and stab jacket for me to carry.

Some walkers from Carlisle caught us up and we passed over half the distance in pleasant conversation.

When we arrived at the tarn the water looked clear with a visible blue line indicating the drop off. I got changed about 20m east of the outlet and realised I would have problems because there were boulders running out to the drop off point. After kitting up because of the way my impairments affect me I crawled out to a point where the drop off begins. It was a mud slope and with good buoyancy control, I was able to hover above without disturbing too much mud. There were no signs of fish but large transparent globes that I suspect were some kind of egg case.  I was amazed that at 8m I could still see the surface. I went down to 14.3m, heading in a south/south east direction and it flattened out so I thought I had reached the bottom. I roamed around and at 13.9m was amazed to discover four upright tree stumps and one lying on its side that had obviously fallen over. I went up the slope in a S.W. direction and it was similar to the one I came down. I swam around in all directions covering about half the tarn or so my friend said from the bubbles on the surface. I did not find any cliffs nor see any fish. I returned to the tree stumps, to confirm what I had seen as no others had appeared on my travels and then made my way out and collecting mineral samples that I found interesting. Without my poles and my boots adjusted by the orthotic department at the hospital it would have been impossible for me to descend carrying my gear. Should registered disabled people do such extreme things? 

Trees do not grow underwater so I decided to do some surface investigation by phoning and notifying institutions that might be interested. I discovered that it is the Dalemain Estate that own and administer the estate and permission to dive there must be sought from them. I have their telephone number if needed. The national parks office although interested are only involved with planning permission and supervising certain sites. Natural England was interested and gave me the name of the warden who administered the site. They also have two ecologists who they felt would be interested in what I had discovered.