Clark hill/ Thurmond 7/26

Just a brief report as food is calling. Two great dives today: 88' for Dive Time of 1:11 and 87' for 68 min. We dove the 80 and 100' wall first dive (yeah lake is down and it is shallower). Vis is 10' down to 20', lousy vis from 20 - 30', then it picks up with 20' on both walls. Lots of fish in the shallows, our pet crawdad on the 80' wall (with this low O2 content at this depth they aren't suppose to be here). What looked looked an inch worm on a stump at 88' (have no idea). A school of crappie the size of salad plates, large schools of small fish on the hydrilla. Tomorrow we dive at 1pm.

I understand that the river has also been great today (15'+). If we don't get rain, we may dive it tomorrow at 1p. Choices, choices.. for living inland, we do have some decent diving. The late summer/ fall typically brings the best vis on the walls at the lake, but also brings good river vis. The only choice is dive, dive , dive. No, it is not an addiction. Addictions have treatment programs and stuff. For this there is no cure. I will have to get salt on my gear shortly (Cozumel trip), but oh well, sacrifices we must make....
Please PM (with phone #) either tonight or tomorrow morning if you are diving with us tomrrow as the location could change to the river.

Sunday's dives will be at the lake at 1p. We had rain this afternoon - not enought to do anything with the lake vis, but enough to impact the river. We need the rain though. The plane we dive on will be at altitude rather than depth soon if we don't get rain.

We dove there today also. The first dive was the plane, then the boat, back to the plane, then the fuel tank, then the wall. I do not know what wall you would call the wall we were at. The water was about 75-80' at the wall. With an allum. 80 it is easy to suck down soom air at 70'. I dove a 3 mil and one of the other guys with me dove a 3 mill. The last guy dove with just his swim shorts, no mill. We figured he did not know better on the first dive. When he did it the same way on the second dive we figured he was just crazzzzeeey.

There was a crowd at the plane and it was silted up. That was the first time for any of us to go to the wall, I think we all had a blast. Great group to dive with.

Sounds like you were on what we call the 80' wall. If you followed the line from the missle to the wall, that is the 80' wall. The 100' wall (about 10 feet shallower now is beyond the 80 foot wall. There is about a break b/w the 80 and 100' wall. We generally move up the slope about 10' in depth after the 80' wall ends, swim about 30 yards (once you start seeing the dead small tree remains, head northwest to about 90' and you will hit the wall). Keep you line vertical in this area to avoid snagging on the bouy and to keep from pulling over the dead small trees. The red bouy you see from shore is about 1/3 of the way down the along the 100' wall. The anchor for this bouy is about 15-20' west of the wall. If you were to drop down the bouy line, you would need to do a short swim east to the wall. With the lake level being down and the anchoring line has much more slack, the bouy sometimes drifts over the 100' wall and if you are not careful you can snag your flag. When you get to the anchor on the 100' wall, be attentive for the bouy line ) (PS please leave the anchor - it is not a good one anyway- as it serves as a marker for our turns up through the forest and for the bouy line. We dive 7mm suits with hoods. Yes, you can get by with less mils this time of year, but if you are warm your air consumption rate improves substantially. We dove both walls today on 100 steels and I still had over 1500 psi as we made our turn to the shallower depths (we were very close to the no deco limit for our computers). We do a stop at 1/2 of our max depth and an extended safety stop at the end to put our computers a ways back into the green. This works well given the multilevel nature of the dive sites in this corner of the dam. We are diving at 1p today. Come join us.

I do not have my advanced cert right now and I am using a alum 80 so I am a little shy about going to 100'.

How deep is the forest and the kelp bed? I think that would be fun as I would like to see some fish.

Thank you for all of the other info. Each time I go I take a some of what you post with me. It is kind of funny, it is like you are the guru of knowledge at the Hill. One of the guys with me is going to combine some of the video he shot and put it on you tube.

2degrees:

I do not have my advanced cert right now and I am using a alum 80 so I am a little shy about going to 100'.

How deep is the forest and the kelp bed? I think that would be fun as I would like to see some fish.

Thank you for all of the other info. Each time I go I take a some of what you post with me. It is kind of funny, it is like you are the guru of knowledge at the Hill. One of the guys with me is going to combine some of the video he shot and put it on you tube.

Click to expand...

I believe that the forest (mostly small trees that grew up between the initial clearing of the dam area or were relatively small stuff when construction was underway and not bothered with because of their depth - don't expect big tree like the depths at Jocassee) is in the 60 - 70' range at present. the "kelp forest" (elodea or hydrilla depending on who you talk to - seems more like elodea to me) runs parallel to the parking lot and starts at about the second trash can (about 1/2way down the parking lot) and goes north. It is a nice shallow dive/safety stop at b/w 18 -10' of depth. Vis has been running about 6- 8' here, but it is loaded with schools of small fish and the occasional big bass - very small pieces of bread will have lots of sunfish around you. The lake is considered a low vis environment though the walls have been running closer to 20' of vis lately. I agree your concern about diving without advanced OW training to 100' or doing so on an AL 80 . Your posted personal info didn't include much info about equipment or experience. For our second dives, we often invite others along who have less experience who feel that they are ready for a bit more than the plane. We adjust the dive to the skills of the newer diver. Several folks started diving the second dives with us with 20 or so dives and grew their experience - rather rapidly. To the plane and back gets boring rather quickly and really isn't the most interesting Clark Hill dive (we go by briefly, but it is on the way to a safety stop or to depth).

Check out the link on youtube.

YouTube - Got Air? Scuba Clark Hill

One of the guys on the dive shot and edited the video. The sun was not out on tne deep part of the dive, but you can see the water was clear just dark.

Not bad, but photos and video do not do the local diving justice.:frown2: You would need a really low light cam or mega lights for that. We generally dive the 80 and 100' walls when the vis is good (like now) w/o lights, except when we want to look in a hole or say hi to a pet crawfish (yes we have them, yes I dive this site too much). I dive this site so much that I am thinking of applying to PADI for a distinctive specialty on local fish behavior. I have this down to the week (+-) when local fish bed and their associated behavior.

I believe that I may have met you a couple of weeks ago if you are from Dublin. We will be back this weekend for more fun, but I will be putting Coz salt on my gear shortly. You are welcome to join us. Our usual profile is Sat at 8:30a and Sunday at 1p, but I may be able to talk folks in to pushing it back a little (9 or 9:30 Sat) if you are interested or you could join us on dive two at about 11a. This Friday is 1st Friday in Augusta - live outdoor bands, wine tastings, art stuff, etc. I could do with a little more rest Sat. am PM if interested.