A dive team from the His Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) York was in Tobermory this past weekend for a training exercise.
They launched their exercise from the Canadian Coast Guard location in Big Tub Harbour.
On Saturday, in the wind, rain, and sometimes choppy waters, the Toronto based reservists ventured out in a Zodiac inflatable boat and a rigid hull inflatable boat to help maintain buoys in Little Tub Harbour as part of a new initiative with Parks Canada.
It’s training for the Navy that helps Parks Canada.
HMCS York’s Dive Supervisor, Master Sailor Imran Mughal says, Parks Canada has various buoys for safety including ‘keep out’ buoys and navigation buoys which all have chains and anchors. On Saturday, they were working to prevent damage to the chains caused by dragging on the bottom of the lake, by attaching floats at depth to pull them off the bottom.
Mughal says the divers were glad to be in Tobermory, explaining, “This is, I think, quite frankly for diving– the crown jewel of Ontario, if not of Canada.” Mughal, who joined the military about 20 years ago at 18, was a combat engineer and later went on to serve in the Navy. He says he has diving experience on every coast of Canada, and many countries around the world. “I’ve never seen water like this, in Canada this is an absolute jewel, what a gem. That’s what originally attracted us, we can practice deep diving procedures here safely because we have good visibility,” says Mughal.
HMCS York is what’s known as a ‘stone frigate,’ meaning it’s a land-based naval division with around 400 members who are based out of the Toronto waterfront area, and have training opportunities at various locations from coast to coast.
Mughal says in general, HMCS York divers can be tasked with a number of jobs, explaining, “We are a port inspection dive team…our bread and butter is inspecting various ports. For example, if a naval warship or any type of naval vessel needs to moor somewhere, it’s not permitted to moor without having an inspection by qualified military divers. That’s our foundation. We are also working divers, so we have the equipment to work at depths of up to 150 feet (45 metres).”
HMCS York Public Affairs Officer, Acting Sub-Lieutenant Gurudas Gandhi says, as a reserve division in the Royal Canadian Navy, the dive team could also be tasked with various jobs such as augmenting clearance diving teams, underwater engineering, rescue swimming, rigging, lifting, explosives ordnance identification, and diving emergencies.
They may also be tasked to support Operation LENTUS which is a national contingency plan for natural disaster situations like floods, forest fires, ice storms, or hurricanes which involves the military assisting provincial and territorial authorities in a natural disaster situation.
This past weekend’s training exercise involved the underwater inspection and repair of Parks Canada assets including repairing protective cages of wreck entry points which have been tampered with, locating miscellaneous objects underwater for safety and future removal, as well as rescue swimming training and diving emergencies training.
The reservists who visited Tobermory have day jobs that range from working in the tech sector and the music industry to independent business.
Navy Diver and Sailor 1st Class Daniel Baquero Morales, who works in human resources at HMCS York, and whose father, mother and sister all joined the Navy after he did, says each exercise is beneficial, “What I’ve noticed the most about this is, how everybody comes along, the friendships that you build and the different perspectives that you get from different exercises.”
Meanwhile, Mughal says the exercise was the first time the HMCS York’s dive team has come up to the area on its own. “We typically do these types of dive exercises where we’re actually working…as a region. So we have five other units that we get together.” Mughal says, “What I’m really proud of is we’ve assembled a large team now in Toronto at York and we put a request in, talked to Parks Canada and they needed the work done, and we’re here solo as the HMCS York Dive Team which we’re pretty proud of.”
He adds, “At this point in time I’m not aware of any other teams doing this type of work right now in Canada.”
You can learn more about HMCS York on their Facebook page.
@HMCS_NCSM_YORK is in #Tobermory this weekend for a dive training exercise. Look for the story this coming week with @NewsBayshore pic.twitter.com/fbu79AyNzZ
— Claire McCormack (@clairemccorm) October 15, 2022
