A new Texas Diver!!

[MightyDiver]

Hi ya'll! I FINALLY got to take my OW certification dive yesterday at Windy Point after waiting an entire month for my BC to be made and to arrive. I also was able to use my own new reg. I found much to surprise me and discovered that you can yell/yelp quite well into your regulator!

First let me say that I've never dove anywhere so I didn't know what it was going to be like (the pool is so not comparable) at Lake Travis and didn't know what to expect. Well, the Windy Point area is beautiful and boy was it windy! If i hadn't been holding onto the cart that was pulling me downhill I'm sure I would have been blown to Oklahoma. Setting up our gear was fun until spiders and bugs decided to check out my wetsuit. Wussy woman here!!! Brian, my Instructor, saved me from a certain death by spiders and we set off to do my underwater tasks etc for my certification. As I said, I don't know any better or different so when we got in the cold (77F) water and I could barely see anything I'm thinking, "Geez, Divers must really like this dirty grungy stuff!" So off we dove to a platform with me getting grossed out when i saw the rocks down there and avoiding touching anything remotely slimey. As we swam along I find every breath I take is also bringing in water. Gross water remember! So there i was taking a breath then spitting, taking a breath then spitting etc. I was holding Brian's hand with a death grip until we reach the platform since I couldn't see squat. I was thinking, "Damn, Brian is GOOD to know his way in this normal water, thank goodness he knows where we're going!" So we kneel and run through the drills. I'm doing mask clearing which I actually enjoy when out of the murky surround SOMETHING rams hard into my ear and painfully tries to tear it off my head! Killer perch!!! I then found I could scream quite effectively into my reg. It was hard to see past his mask but I'm sure Brian was laughing. Maybe he paid the perch??? Hmmm... Okay, long story less long now...we surface and sit at the table resting before our other dives and then he tells me that the vis is really poor from algae bloom and that it's not normally like this. YAY!!! I am so relieved! Now i don't have to give up diving Lake Travis! I was quite concerned when my buddy was a few feet from me down there and i cannot see his hand signals through the sludge. I am so glad that diving from here on in will be nothing but uphill, sunshine, daisies and happiness. Okay, except for the spiders!

 

[Dee]

Congratulations! You have to watch out for those Killer Perch

Lake Travis will never be the Caribbean but it does clear up occasionally after the algae bloom. Remember too, that there may be hundreds of divers in the water at Windy Point over the weekend so the visability is lower there than some of the other dive locations around the lake.

Welcome to the Family!

 

[TwoBitTxn]

Congrats. Glad you made it.

Regs should not breath that wet. I hope you got it fixed.

Sunfish, when feed by divers too often, can lose their fear of humans and frequently mistake the tops of ears for food. Or will at least test the edibility of them. Much like when being bitten by a shark people tend to object to this. Sunfish can draw blood.

Come join us at Mansfield Memorial day weekend.

Tom

 

[TRUETEXAN]

Hi MightyDiver,

Glad you made it, and I hope you get your reg fixed. Where I usually dive at Possum Kingdom Lake we call the Perch PK Pirahnas.

 

[ckharlan66]

Glad to hear it went well. Can I interest you in a hood?

Chad

 

[jbd]

Congrats on your certification! All you need now is 10 more dives in that same area and you'll be a real true inland diver.

Having been victim of several "attacks" on my left ear during my AOW class I strongly recommend a hood. I guess I should have known what to expect since the sign at out local quarry says "The fish here WILL eat you"

 

[MightyDiver]

I never knew that you wore a hood for anything other than protection from the cold so I guess I learned something new. I just finished placing an order for head protection. Okay, and ANOTHER wetsuit! Why wasn't I warned when I signed up for diving that it would lead to uncontrollable desires for wetsuits??? I've only 5 dives to my name but 5 wetsuits! Sheesh! I am not a collector in any other area of my life so this is quite insane.

Thanks for the congrats everyone. Oh and i did take the octo that was watery (I was breathing off it on a long hose; have the normal reg on a bungee around my neck;both are supposed to be the exact same model) straight to the shop after diving and they did something to it to hopefully fix it. I'll try it this week either in the pool or at the lake.

 

[Tavi]

Congrats!!

 

[Fetch]

Originally posted by MightyDiver
As I said, I don't know any better or different so when we got in the cold (77F) water and I could barely see anything I'm thinking, "Geez, Divers must really like this dirty grungy stuff!"

77F? Sounds warm to me

I got to go diving at Blue Lagoon Thursday and Friday, surface temp of 83 (so claimed the DI). First time I'd ever been diving that I didn't need a 7mil wetsuit

Congrats,
Jeff

 

[-=>Larry<=-]

Welcome to Diving and to Travis!

Looks like the reg issue is dealt with - but I have an extra word about the killer sunfish.
I suspect that once you're diving normally and not sitting relatively immobile doing skills on the platform [where they are fed by others] - You won't have a problem with them.

Expect the visibility at Travis to be 4-8 feet on the ugly days and 15-20 feet on the really good ones. Slime? - perhaps that's the algae bloom - - but you can expect some silt most everywhere.

Looking forward to meeting you out there sometime!