Yeah. The bottom surface slope is shallow enough it’d be easy to walk on towards the mouth. Until it isn’t. Decent bet the distance between “I’m getting worried” and “I’m dead” is just a few paces. It’d be easy to get past that threshold while gazing in awe at your surroundings.
This just appeared on facebook … !
That can’t be fun. I wonder how (or if) they got out.
Photoshop? That’s probably what got them into that predicament in the first place. 
Yes. They look suspiciously calm.
My tell is the fact the rest of the bus is clean and dry with no evidence of having gotten wet or muddy on its way from shore to being engulfed in the whirlpool. It looks like it was just set there by an invisible helicopter.
But this helicopter doesn’t make the traditional “chop-chop-chop” noise. Instead it goes “shop-shop-shop”.
Bleh, this made me cackle-guffaw so unexpectedly I nearly farted…
Twice in the past two or three days I’ve had something about these things come up on my Facebook feed. Here’s one from moments ago:
Nah, it makes like Ricky Ricardo and goes “ai, ai, ai”.
Yeah. Sometimes I’m a little gullible.
These shaft spillways are interesting (I’m going to call them shaft spillways). So far I’ve mapped 11 places in the world that have them (the one reservoir in England actually has two shaft spillways— fascinating).
My ▲ icon provides the DD coordinates. In a map satellite view these coordinates should get you close enough (I truncate or round off the numbers to shorten the length of characters).
It would be cool to visit them, especially when they are spilling. In June I might be able to swing by the Owyhee Reservoir on a road trip to Seattle, but I’ll be going through Eugene so that spillway is 400 miles away, almost all the way across the state. We shall see if I can make that happen. I’ve been known to do crazier things.
So there are at least 4 in the US, 5 in Europe, 1 in Australia and 1 in Africa. There has to be many more. These weren’t all that difficult to find.
I wonder if there’s a site that lists many of them. That would be convenient.
Australia, New South Wales, near Mount Kosciuszko (southeast New South Wales, and southeast Australia)
▲ -36.30585, 148.3159, at the Geehi Dam impounding the Geehi River, at Geehi Reservoir;
∘ The widest in the world, at 105’
England, Derbyshire (northern Derbyshire, central England)
▲ 53.366, -1.6987 and ▲ 53.3664, -1.704 at the Ladybower Dam impounding the River Derwent (and River Ashop and Ladybower Brook), at Ladybower Reservoir
∘ Two shaft spillways at this dam; they are about 400 yards apart
Portugal, Guarda District (southwest Guarda District in central Portugal)
▲ 40.3639, -7.6109 at the dam, Barragem de Covão do Meio, impounding the river, Ribeira da Nave, at Covão dos Conchos reservoir;
Ribeira de Nave Descida
∘ This shaft spillway is built to look like a natural formation.
Portugal, Santarém District (northeast Santarém, central Portugal)
▲ 39.566, -7.8116 at the dam, Barragem da Pracana, impounding the river, Rio Ocreza, at Albufeira de Barragem da Pracana (Pracana Dam Reservoir)
∘ Pic on FB ➜ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212774361976906 ■
USA, California (northern California)
▲ 38.5122, -122.1049 at the Monticello Dam impounding Putah Creek, at Lake Berryessa
∘ my pictures ➜ Pretty cool! Have you ever seen a bell-mouth spillway? - Album on Imgur ■
∘ Drone flight through it ➜ https://youtu.be/4TCWs-QfJV8&t=2m22s ■
USA, Oregon, Malheur County (southeast Oregon)
▲ 43.642, -117.2413 at Owyhee Reservoir; impounded by the Owyhee Dam on the Owyhee River
USA, Montana, Flathead County (northwest Montana)
▲ 48.3434, -114.0125 at Hungry Horse Dam impounding the South Fork Flathead River, at Hungry Horse Reservoir
∘ It is the highest one in the world (as per wiki) at 3,560’ above sea level
USA, Montana, Lewis and Clark County (western Montana)
▲ 47.6022, -112.762 at Gibson Dam impounding the Sun River, at Gibson Reservoir
Wales (southeast Wales)
▲ 51.798, -3.3656 at a 110ft high embankment impounding the Taf Fechan of the River Taff, at the Pontsticill Reservoir (or, Cronfa Ddŵr Pontsticill; formerly the Taff Fechan Reservoir)
Zimbabwe (southeast Zimbabwe)
▲ -20.726, 30.898 at the Tugwi Mukosi Dam impounding the Tokwe River, at the Tugwi-Mukosi Reservoir.
∘ It is spilling right now. Do we have any Dopers in Zimbabwe? ➜ https://www.herald.co.zw/tugwi-mukosi-dam-now-spilling ■
Farther north in California, Whiskeytown Lake near Redding has one, too → https://maps.app.goo.gl/XV33qxA5UB3wUHjh7.
Geeze, I used to swim at the other side of that lake. shudders It’s terrifying knowing that hole is just waiting on the other end… a careless snorkel later and slurrrrrrrp. Gulp.
I wonder if it survived the fires? Presumably it was surrounded by enough water to not be damaged.
Hey, @scudsucker! Ever been there?
Sadly, no.
Edit: in some other thread which I can’t be arsed to find, there is some discussion of “glory hole” spillways, and that is an example.
(Yes, I see what I did there)
Too bad. I take it you’re unlikely to ever go to see it?
I’ve no real reason to go back to Zim until it is stable. I would love to retire there, because I love my country… but it is a economic disaster
That’s sad to hear. It’s probably futile, but I hope some day you’ll be able to go back.
The article above has a video of the duck that wasn’t so quick-thinking:
There’s an asterisk in Armenia.
(Seen in the other of the two Facebook posts I mentioned earlier.)