Dive Condition Reports

[ianr33]

Water 82 degrees,visibility forever.

Thats probably how it was in Cayman. Unfortunately we were at Windy Point,Lake Travis where the air temp was in the 40's with a refreshing light drizzle. Water Temp 55 and once in a while the viz opened up to 3 feet.
Good conditions for practicing buddy awareness and touch contact.

 

[FIXXERVI6]

Air temp 30
Surface temp 38
Bottom temp 37 (93 feet)
Vis: varied from about a foot to about 5-6 feet in some spots up shallow

 

[carrielsal]

One dive to 80'. Water temp 54 degrees, no thermocline. Still the same crappy 3-5' vis. Once again I found the rusting pinto by just about running into it. I saw a couple of fish at 20' looking cold and hungry, but I think the rest have gone south for the winter.
The walk down the stairs to the water is definately shorter. Grottos are at around 60'.

 

[driftwood]

1-14 Spring Lake, San Marcos

Water temp, same
vis, 50'+
Spring Flow, 180cfs +-

Pete and me dove Deep Hole and Arch Site. The springs actually look better than the official 180cfs.

Pete kicked up a pair of soft shell turtles (rare to see them). Nice dive, other that the two turtles nothing out of the ordinary. GREAT to be back in the water!

 

[driftwood]

1-17-10 Spring Lake San Marcos

Temp, the same
Vis, 40-50 (recent rains)
Spring Flow, 200cfs+

Buddied with Austinspace and Navychop today. We were assigned Catfish Hotel. Not really a working dive, just wanted to demonstrate navigation and techniques.

Cream of Wheat looks very good right now. No finning needed, the springs are blowing all the organic matter out. The Coontail is starting to arch over on the north side and will need to be cleared in the next couple of weeks. Ossified Forrest is always a mess. Riverbed has a nice carpet of Parrot Feather/algae and Coontail is just starting to take hold. Catfish Hotel has a lot of algae. We did spot a nice Channel Catfish under the big boulder at the bottom of Catfish.

With the recent rain, the spring flow should increase over the next week and the vis will markedly improve. If you want to work on photography, the next couple of weeks will be stellar.

 

[arokdad]

Comal River Jan 18, 2010

http://tomsscuba.com/pdf/comal_river.pdf

Entered the river at the last tubing public exit near the junction with Guadalupe. Had the place to myself. Met a family exiting as I geared up. My plan was to move upstream to the first bend and drift back. Vis was terrible for Comal standards...5 ft. It had been about 4 days since all that rain had stopped. I was going to follow up with a night dive Tues at Prince Solms Park but I think I'll wait an extra day or so, maybe Wed or Thurs night. I want to get there soon with the weather as warm as it is. Beautiful day for a dive, 71 surface, 71 below.
You can imagine the current. I'd compare it to the tube chute. Ok, maybe that's a stretch, but I got a chance to work on my Nascar drift maneuver....position myself in the calm behind a large (rock) formation, rest, then push out again the strong current to the next haven. Ton of fun.
Best location on the lower end of the river is its last bend adjacent to the Comal Circle road on the map. The bank on the far side of the bend has a large tree hanging over the river and its roots protrude out at the deepeset point, 11 ft. The current is much lighter on this side and practically non-existent at depth. All the fish and turtles were hanging out at the tree roots. Seemed more like a lake dive than a river dive.
The drift back was far too fast for my liking. And the current only picked up speed as I got closer to the exit point.

 

[Phil_218]

Air temp 67-79
Water temp 54-57
Viz 20'
Max Depth 13'

Dive #45 was 90 minutes
Dive #46 was 47 minutes

Nice, long, shallow dives in clear water. Observed bass, catfish, trout, and perch. Located a few goodies left behind by past vacationers. Water was chilly, especially after the one hour mark. Dove in 7/5mm jumpsuit with 6.5mm hood, 5mm boots and gloves.

River is still low (like everything else) and needs a good flood to clean it out and bring up the levels. Still good for a local dive, though. After we get a good flood and good weather, I encourage all of you to bring your family out for tubing and diving.

Stay safe, stay wet.

 

[shaggie]

Since there haven't been any posts about Lake Travis in a couple of weeks I just had to go check it out. the water level is way up. The sand spit is now closed. Sometimes islands are still there, but going away fast. I took my 12 ft Achiles over to Hippy Hollow and anchored east of the swimming area. The weather was great- warm and a light breeze from the sw. I dropped down the anchor line to 55 ft and followed the wall west. Water temp was 52 deg and the vis was lousy to really lousy. Other then that, it was a good dive. Found a pair of sunglasses and several Mardi Gras beads. The wall and grottos there are very nice from what I've seen. Maybe next time I go there I'll actually be able to see :- )

 

[psiborg1812]

Valhalla Missile Silo- Jan 23-24th

Temp- 57-60- I'd classify it as somewhere between "HOLY CRAP it's" and " Jeezus it's" cold. Wore a 3 mil long with a hood, gloves, and socks and wasn't too bad.
Viz- Great! 20-30 feet, although it's a night dive for sure! about .01% of the light on the surface filters down, it feels like you are on another planet. No thermoclines.

Stuff: did 3 dives over 2 days, 2 20 minute dives and one 45 minute deco dive. It was my first ever deco dive, and it was fun, although boring.

 

[driftwood]

Temp, same
Vis, 60'+
Spring Flow 208cfs

Gary joined John and me for the dive today. Aaron sent us to Kettleman's and further south along the boat path to clear massive heads of coontail hung up on the parrot feather.

This was the first time John and me had been in that part of the lake and we were almost to the "wires" before heading back. Depth varies between 6 and 14 feet with a strong current. An interesting part of the lake that we are not allowed to visit often. With the strong current, you need to be very aware of your air since the swim back to Arch Site is a good one.

Gary finished up the day diving with the AC staff doing water samples. Congratulations Gary, you had the mother of all orientation dives today. You got to see more of the lake than 99% of all Science Divers. It took me 5 years to see as much of the lake are you did today.

All the springs in Deep Hole need to be cleaned. Arch Site is a complete mess (we hit the high points but much more to do there). The East/West cut between AS and DH is clear.