Dive Condition Reports

[scubashawn123]

Lake Travis Texas

Great fun dive day with an outstanding dive team to go explore Lake Travis.
Lake Travis Scuba picked us with only 10 feet to walk to the shoreline.
Amazingly close to parking out on the point of WPP.

Shaker Plant

water temp 79 degrees to 58 feet

Starnes Island

water temp to 61 feet 79 degrees

Nice warm water

Visibility better at shaker plant than Starnes Island.

Recent rains mucking up the water with run off.

Starnes was poor and poorer viz

 

[PeppermintPaddi]

This is out of order, datewise, but no one has posted hippie hollow for a while, so....

Dove with Polkster13 and a friend of his who owns a small pontoon boat. Put in right in the middle, by the pipe that comes down and headed away from the Oasis at about 50 ffw going out and 20 ffw coming back. Some nice overhangs and a few big trees going out, and 1 big plow anchor that was solidly stuck. Lots of trash at 20 ffw, evidently where the boats usually park, but really close to shore now.

Temp was 79F to 54 ffw, as deep as we went.
Viz varied <5ft above 20 ffw.
Below that viz was 5-10 feet in most places.

 

[Texas Torpedo]

Date: Sunday - October 4, 2009
Location: Lake Travis - The Wall at Tom Hughes Park via the Giant Stride.
Dive Buddy: CarrieSal
Surface Temp & Conditions: Aprox. 73-75 Degrees, Raining On and Off.
Water Temp: 78F surface, 77F @ 45', 75F @ 75', 69F @ 90', and 62F @ 100'.
Visibility: On the way down it was typically what I have seen descending the Oasis Wall in the past. From a foot or two up top, getting better as you descend lower. Visibility at 100 was was 15-20+ feet. The clearest I have ever personally seen at Lake Travis.
Comments: Robert (Lake Travis Scuba - Giant Stride) dropped us off by Tom Hughes Park and the plan was to go deep and head towards the Oasis side of the wall. For someone who has rarely seen viz better than 5+ feet at Lake Travis, this dive was a real pleasure. I saw a number of small fish and lots of old beer cans, etc.. So far, no anchors for me yet.

A big thanks to both Carrie and Robert, and all the great company we had on this charter despite the rain and a slight chill. Most of us came from Trashfest so it was a great continuation to the previous day..

 

[carlislere]

We dove Mansfield Park on Saturday to the dam and back. Water temp was 77 degrees shallow and 62 degrees at 100 feet. The thermocline is at 88-89 feet now. Visability was 2-3 foot from the surface to the thermocline due to recent rain runoff, below 90 feet vis was at least 15 feet, but dark.
The grilled t-bones afterward were also delicious!

 

[shaggie]

Went and dove the Shaker Plant saturday via my 12 ft achiles RIB. I had a plan to tie off a six pack below the thermocline to keep it cool until the last dive of the day, but I never found it. Aborted that plan at around 87 ft when I kept swimming into the bottom :-( Still had a good time with Sub Zero and David. Hopefully things will clear up some for next weekend.

 

[driftwood]

Had a good day diving Spring Lake with Peppermintpadi and John Payne. The vis is back up to the 50-75' range. Cream of Wheat is looking like it should again with the flow at around 150cfs.

The coontail is making a big comeback and needs to be cleared on the ridge between Cream of Wheat and Diversion. There is a lot of algae in Ossified Forrest all the way through Catfish Hotel that needs attention.

After a couple weeks of diving in Lake Travis, it was nice to get back to my favorite dive site. It is great to see the flow from the springs coming back to something approaching normal.

 

[James R]

10/19/09 - Windy Point Private

What a nice day to go out there...perfect weather!

Entry is still a bit rough, bc the water is still well below platforms etc as expected. We went down to 50' from the stairs with the concrete-held rocks under them and headed to the sail boat, checked it out, and just toured around until someone hit 750ps.
Vis was pretty stable at 5-8' the whole way. Lots of sediment, though, which made it seem like my mask was a bit foggy -- it wasn't.

80 degrees surface, 73 degrees at 59'

 

[PeppermintPaddi]

Dove with BlazerDiver. Took the middle switch back trail hike down to the water, swam around the point and pretty much dropped in on top of the Gym. Mark's been there quite a few times lately.

Gym base is currently 76 ffw. Found salamander, bug, skeleton, RIP. Signed Zinc's slate. Also found BlazerDiver's cache at 67 ffw. Lake was 632 ft last time I looked.

Viz was 2-4 feet. Very silty. Separate by 10ish feet and single LED divelights were no help in locating a buddy.

Water temp 77F at surface, 75F at 76ffw.

 

[psiborg1812]

Mansfield Dam- Oct. 18th, 2009

Did several deep dives off the dam with students, had a blast!

Depth of 118 feet, hit a small thermocline that dropped the temp from 78 on the surface, to 75, then a big thermocline past 95 feet that dropped the temp to 66, a bit of a shock if you aren't wearing a wetsuit! We got close to the bottom, you could smell the silt and goo, also saw a tree trunk leaning up against the dam as we swam around the grates. Viz was nice after 40 feet, opening from 4 feet to 6-7, although it got very dark.

 

[heavyjeffd]

Where: Comal River - Solms Park
When: 10/24, 2:00-3:30PM-ish
Vis: Pretty bad, 4'-15'
Temp: 74F

Went to the Comal today with my newly-certified wife for a nice mellow dive. Due to all the rain, the Comal was about 4-5' deeper than usual, I actually saw 16' depth believe it or not. Apparently it was about 8' higher than that the day it really came down.

Of course vis is still fairly poor (for the Comal) due to all the runoff. The current must have been pretty damn swift, all the 'pom-pom's (vegetation) that's usually carpeting the bottom is all gone. I mean ALL of it. It's basically 10-15' from start to finish in Solms Park now.