About 3 years ago I dove at the old logging mill townsite of Caycuse on Cowichan lake. The history of this spot is mentioned in my original description of those dives at Caycuse. I also wanted to dive the site of the old log dump in the next bay to the South, which was where most of the industrial operation was located. I didn't get around to it until May 1, 2016, when I drove back to Caycuse on a gravel logging road along the South shore of Cowichan lake.
Here are some old photos of the Caycuse log dump area from the websites: heavyequipmentforums.com and mosaictraining.ca:
I parked in a tiny pull-out on the side of the logging road next to the water. Parking on the side of the active logging road itself would be dangerous and probably illegal.
I first swam out to the left to see what was underwater around the old railroad log dump.
The area was surprisingly shallow. Near the cut-off pilings it was only about 3' deep. I swam out from shore and I had to swim for quite a way to get below 10' deep. I don't think I got below 20' deep in this area. Visibility was a bright 20' or so. I didn't notice any man-made debris out here. There were a few logs on the bottom.
I didn't see any trout (I usually don't see them in Cowichan lake until June) and I only saw 2 crayfish, but there were lots of mating newts.
I had swam back near my entry-point and I came across some kind of sunken wooden structure between 10-20' deep. It looked like a scow. I'm guessing it was maybe 20' wide and 60' long.
I then swam farther East. this area went down to around 30' deep. There were more piles of logs and wood debris here. One of the logs was around 6' in diameter. There are some pilings visible offshore from the surface. I looked around some of them underwater for old sunken steam tugs or whatever, but there was nothing. The area near shore was in the shadow of the trees. It was pretty, but also spooky to swim into the dark areas and see the rays of the sun shimmering down between the trees.
This site covers a large area and I only swam around at random and saw a few parts of it. I didn't see many man-made objects compared to many of the other Cowichan Lake logging mill sites, but who knows, there may be a pile of discarded old steam locomotives or a sunken bunkhouse in the places I didn't look. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to all the tugboats (wooden steamers and later steel diesels) that used to swarm all over Cowichan lake in the logging days.
