Dive Condition Reports

[PeppermintPaddi]

Divers: Foo-in-Spirit, Blazerdiver, PaulW, Texas_Torpedo, AnderCB1, PeppermintPaddi, and 2 new recruits (To dive during the week this time of year a minimum of 4 divers and reservations are required.)

Weather was overcast, slight drizzle at times
Roads going in were well maintained
Parking right by the water. Easy walk in entries. Covered wooden pavilions with picnic tables for gear (and for eating I suppose).
Dove both lagoons:
Water Temp: 82F all the way down (25 ft)
Visibility: 20+ ft
You Eastern Texans have a really nice diving place.

I'd sure like to know if the little darter fish are related to the ones in Spring Lake.

 

[GaryBDavis]

Where: Comal River - Solms Park
When: Saturday morning 8:30AM - 10:00AM
Vis: Less than normal at 6 to 8'

Current was a bit swift today. I don't know if it ever really cleared up from last week's rain or not. Certainly not the usual clarity. Stayed in 1 1/2 hours and still had 700PSI in the tank. Got wet so not a bad day, just not the best.

 

[texdiveguy]

Clear Springs Scuba Park (Terrell Tx.)

It was anything but clear with the 7.5" of rain they have received the owner/Robert told me. I found the 'center' gully to the quarry/pond and found a few area's that were 51ffw deep/dark and 67f--strange! The deepest part of the park is the 2 'silo' at about 60ffw. I was wearing both of my computers and they reg. the same. Vis was a few inches to 2-3ft at times. Allot of students and classes going on today. Wearing 5mil expossure gear. Made two dives of siml. profile. Water in general is cooling off.....5mil season for me.

 

[TwoBitTxn]

I'm going to expand on Alan's report a little.

78* at the surface to where ever the thermal is. It's still below 33 feet as that was the deepest I got.

I agree, vis sucked.

Pretty day though.

 

[tk trekers]

Project Aware clean up dive today with International Scuba out of Carrollton & Garland TX.

Approximately 50 divers pulled up a lot of trash today, cans, bottles, sun glasses, cameras, a few anchors, a few shoes, a car/boat battery and general trash. One diver said as he was surfacing, a guy drinking on a boat was throwing several cans in right next to him.

The water temps were about 79-80 at the surface and dropped down to 68 at 38' which was my max depth for the area we were working.

The visibility was a bit poor due to the rain and run off they have had this week and was probably in the 3-4' range until everyone got the silt stirred up at which point it turned into a muddy night dive. I could not read my computer with the light on in a few areas even held close to my mask. My son actually had mud running off of his face when we surfaced from the silt that was sticking to everything so I'm sure I did too.

Nice day with some new friends and diver camaraderie.

 

[psiborg1812]

Cleburne State Park Lake

Me and a buddy of mine heard about this lake, it's spring fed, but there's not enough flow to make it very clear. the rains made it about like you'd expect....
Vis Not bad depending on where you were. By not bad i mean a foot, foot n a half in some places even!
Temp 78 on the surface, thermoclines at 4 feet and 10 feet got down to 72. I was fine not wearing a wetsuit, although i would hav eliked to have worn one in case there was scratchy stuff down there!
Stuff First, it's all pebbly, then it's all muddy, then the mud get's broken by tree stumps every once in a while. then a catfish swims out from one of the stumps and you scream like a schoolgirl through your reg. ta da!

One good thing about this lake is that it was only 3 bucks to get in, and is nearby (~1 hour) from Arlington. I found a nice old bottle there, i'm thinking abotu heading back once the stuff settles from the rains.

Lake Granbury

We were close by, and wanted to burn off another tank. it was again, like you would expect.

Vis- The water was dark and brownish tinted, the vis would vary with depth, although it never got over a foot. I would lean towards saying this vis was "not the best." Not bad, just not that good. It got darkish past 10 feet.
Temp About the same as Cleburne, thermo at 6 feet and 11 feet, going from 79 to 75.
Stuff Man, it was barren down there. We swam out quite a ways and nothing but a flat plain of mud occasionally broken by a branch or a beer can. Absolutely lifeless as well, although the fish could have been stalking us from a foot n a half away and we would not have known.


Both these lakes had a very gradual slope, and in neither of them did we get below 14 feet in depth. Granbury probably has a river channel, but it's far out there. Cleburne was made when they dammed a spring, so i don't know what it's bottom looks like, although the park ranger said that it was 40 feet deep.

All in all, not a bad day of diving!

 

[carlislere]

We dove Mansfield Park dive area this morning. Maximum depth was 114 feet. Surface temp is 79 degrees and bottom temp is 62 degrees. Visability is 6-8 feet above 70 feet, murky around the 78 foot thermocline, then clears up to 8-10 feet below the thermocline. The bottom of the two far right gates are at 108 feet. There is also a small, blue and white, upside down boat just to the right of the far right gate. The plane fuselage is at 20 feet. Did one of our deco stops there.

 

[Gillty]

Lake Elmer Thomas, Dam Area, Lawton Oklahoma, Sep 27 2009

Visibility was pretty good today as long as you stayed away from the OW classes. We had anywhere from 5-15ft. Most of the time it was 10-12 ft. Surface Temp was floating around 70 degrees.

Thermocline started out at about 35ft as a thick layer of muck that cleared up at about 39ft where the vis opened up to 20ft plus vis but very dark. We didn't stay on bottom long enough to get a good temp reading below the thermocline but I would estimate it at colder than 60 degrees.

 

[heavyjeffd]

Where: Comal River - Solms Park
When: Friday afternoon, 1:00-3:00PM
Vis: Pretty bad, 1'-10' tops

Stopped by the river on Friday for a quick dip, vis was pretty horrible (for the Comal) and the current was much, much stronger than usual. I'm guessing the recent rains are still messing with the vis (it was cloudy, not silty) and it may take a while for it to clear up yet.

 

[carrielsal]

Paulw and I went out to WP public last night. The water temp is definately dropping. It was in the mid 70's around 60' with normal 5-10' viz in pea green soup. At 80-90' viz dropped down to inches. We experienced the same thing on Sunday. Not sure what's happening, since we had been seeing 10-15' vis just a few weeks ago. At about 90' the viz opened back up to 10-15' again and temp dropped down to 68 degrees, but after swimming a few hundred feet, viz went right back down to inches, extremely difficult to even look at gauges.