St. Lawrence River temperature

[Doppler]

Hello Mr Doppler. Will we have the honour of your presence in Brockville during the July long weekend? You have trained so many of my friends...

Does anyone know why the river has become so silty over the last 5 years or so? It used to be so clear with at least 50 - 100 feet visibility regularly, especially on the U.S. side. The last few years, it's gotten progressively siltier.

For example, I remember being able to see (7 and 8 years ago) almost the length of the Keystorm clearly and now you can just see maybe 30 feet if that on most days. We could look inside without a light and see the entire open space. Now, even with a light, you can barely see into the Keystorm. Well, it keeps us on the outside of the wreck for the most part. You could see the America clearly from a distance, and now you just follow the chain almost blindly until you get to it. Why so much silt lately?

I will be there from Thursday until Monday... Exactly how many of your friends have I trained and why have we never met? LOL

To answer the silt question... Totally without science to back me up but in filter all that gung from the water, zebras have to poop some of it back out... Also, they seem to be abating a lot... I can see wood again on many of the wrecks. Daedalus zebras also equals silt!


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[Ayisha]

Thanks Steve. Some of my friends and I were wondering about erosion or runoff from somewhere, but that makes sense.

You must have trained at least a dozen of my friends. I believe you almost came to my house once when Dave S, Kelly R, Steve L, and Christine L-S did their training with you 3 years ago and came to my party, but you didn't make it. You also trained another friend Warren L and my O/W instructor Tom W., and I could mention many more... We probably haven't met because I'm not a techie...

I'll be in Brockville from Thursday to Sunday, and I see you RSVP'd to Mark's Canada Day weekend as well, so I probably will see you around...

 

[Mike T]

About the vis...
As Steve mentioned the zebra mussels seem to be in decline. I would assume this is because the goby population seems to be increasing. Every year there seem to be more and more and I am pretty sure they eat zebra mussels.
It seems to me that I read an article a few years back about how the levels of toxins in game fish were higher as a result of them eating the gobies that ate the zebras that filtered the water.
Makes sense as I agree the vis ain't what it used to be. Still good though!

 

[Ayisha]

Thanks for the info. After diving in Brockville all weekend, I can verify that zebra mussels are in major decline in the St Lawrence river. The saying used to be that we saw zebra mussels in the shape of a wreck, but now we see mostly bare wood. I have never seen such zebra-free wrecks. There were lots of dead mussels strewn about the sand and lots of gobies.

The vis was pretty decent this weekend. We were averaging 20 - 40 feet vis on all of our dives. We had 65F bottom temp on Fri on the Gaskin and Lillie Parsons; 65 F on Sat on the Vickery and Kinghorn; and 66 F today on the Keystorm and America.

 

[shoredivr]

Thanks for that update Ayisha. Anything over 45F is great

 

[gitterdun]

We actually had a 2 degree F fluctuation in temperature in the channel, this past weekend. We had 64F at about 100' in the channel, and 66F around 40'.

 

[Seraphimx]

I did the Keystorm and Vickery on the 25th
We clearly saw 2 cases of Gobies eating zebra mussels and I can say, "damn, they are getting big".
On the Vickery they stayed in the rocks near the line going to the buoy and inside the wreck.
In the wreck they were easily a foot long or more and fat.

Futhermore, there are lots of deposit of zebra mussel shells near the wrecks.

 

[Atom]

I wonder how it'll equalize.... at some point there's going to be less zebra mussels so the gobies should suffer (am I right?), so zebra mussels population could go up again while there are less gobies.... and then the gobies population would go up... and rinse & repeat....

 

[Ayisha]

What eats the gobies?

 

[Doppler]

What eats the gobies?

Not sure, but sorry we did not get to meet at the weekend. I was there!