galscuba
Contributor
Could you pick up three for me? I'll pay you for those and the boat when I get there. Thanks so much!!!!
Lake Tenkiller Dive Trip (8.12.06)
- Thread starter PacketSniffer
- Start date
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I will be brining four, just in case.PacketSniffer:
Willie
Hi gang.... I would love to join you folks,,,but just got in from 5 days in Arkansas on R&R,,,SO things to catch up on around home/work and a shortage of $. Have a super time,,,,and will catch the next boat out!!!! Alan 
OP
Oh, boy... Let's see. Where do I start? :rofl:
Our fun-filled and exciting day started with Richerso and I meeting up, by chance, at the Nautical Adventures dive shop at about 08:15. We grabbed some tanks and headed to the marina. Wet-Willie soon arrived at the marina as well as Galscuba. While they continued to bring gear down to the dock, I went inside to get the pontoon boat rental completed. As I'm filling out the paperwork, I inquired about how the boat is insured if an accident should occur. I was told not to worry too much about it and that not much can happen except for maybe some bent up items as you might hit the rock formations. In addition, I was told that there hasn't been a major mishap with one of the pontoon boats "in forever". (Important: Remember this exchange of words. ) With that, I was given a quick rundown on the boat before departure. I was shown that the prop was in good condition as well as the rest of the boat. Then, I was shown how to start the engine. It's all fairly easy and it isn't the first time I've been the "Captain" (lol) of a pontoon boat. Then the rental manager said it was recommended that we put the majority of our tanks at the back of the boat and keep our first dive set up front and ready to go. He said by putting all of our tanks up front that "we might get wet". Boy, that was the understatement of the day right there.
So, none of us has been boating on Lake Tenkiller before but, together, we were equipped with three GPS, one VHF radio, three mobile phones, a not-so-detailed lake map from a brochure, and a topo map. We had Tim (Nautical Adventures) provide locations to the best submerged home sites. So, we left the dock at 09:30 for our first dive site: The Mob House.
The mob house has a little gangster reputation to it with characters like Pretty Boy Floyd being attached to it. Conveniently, the mob house was one of the few sites with a buoy. This took a little stress off flocating our first dive site. We found the site quickly and beached the pontoon boat. The site is close to shore. We geared up and were ready to jump in minutes. With dive flag in tow, we buddied up in pairs and started our adventure. All that remains today are some foundation walls and steps. Here's a shot of Richerso at the doorway. It's a rather large site and can keep you busy for about twenty minutes. However, Wet-willie and Galscuba really seemed to be enjoying this dive and stayed down like 40 minutes or so. I think they thought this was some reef dive from Cozumel. lol
Back on the boat, we wanted to travel to the next site during our surface interval. We shoved off from shore and I proceeded to crank the motor. However, the motor wouldn't start. We tried for about fifteen minutes to get that dang motor started and it just wasn't happening. Knowing we were on a tight time schedule, I called over to the marina to let them know of our problem. They told me they would be right out. We waited. Finally, a boat comes around us with flashing lights. I asked the others what that boat was. They said, "That's lake patrol." It turns out they brought the marina help. We joined the boats together and let the kid from the marina board to check out the motor. I turned and said to our group, "Watch him start it on the first try." This incited laughter all the way around. Ten seconds later, the kid turned the key and it fired right up. Of course, everyone was rolling on the floor from laughter now. It turns out that there was one key detail that was left out of my briefing on starting the motor. The lake patrol officer proceeds to ask me for my name. I politely told him as he whips out a thick booklet from his back pocket. As he starts writing, he asks for my address. Ok, now I'm wondering what he's doing with this info. He says, "I'm gonna write this up." Without taking another breath, he asks for my social security number, drivers license number, phone number, etc. I'm now concerned. The peanut gallery is throwing out one liners as he writes. One shouted,"So you get a ticket for not starting your motor and being a hazard?" Another exclaimed, "So, what's this gonna cost?" The patrol officer replies very quickly and in a serious tone, "One sixty-two, fifty." I gasped! Though I thought he was joking at first, it was shaping up to be real serious. Geez, this is turning out to be one expensive lake dive trip. lol A few seconds later he hands me the carbon copy and tells me that it's just a contact report. There is no offense done by us. He has to write these reports up so his boss knows he's doing his job. He let us think we were getting fined the whole time though. LOL We found out later he's a regular jokester. :rofl:
With the engine purring, we head off to our second dive site. This was to be the "wooden bridge." It was part of one of the roads that went through the area but ended up submerged when the lake was made from the water damn project. We found the shore line features that put us in the right area. We formulated a dive plan and went after it. We spent a good fifty minutes zig-zagging back and forth across the area but we never did find the wooden bridge. The visibility was hardly anything to write home about (See Galscuba and Wet-Wille). However, there were some spots along our journey that put us in zero vis. We turned on our lights to better help see each other. We also stuck together in pairs very close. I thought we did a very good job with buddy skills. After examining the topo map again, we believe we were not far enough out from shore to locate the wooden bridge. We'll have to try this one again.
We chose the thoughts of a nice, clear, wall dive for our last dive. There was a nice wall from one of the outcroppings across where we sat for the wooden bridge dive. The topography showed a steep drop to seventy feet or so. I was told there were a lot of fish and it should be clear water. So, we got set up and prepared to jump. For the other dives, we've been donning our gear in the water especially since it's been within standing depth. Since we were positioned over the wall on this dive, Galscuba was going to do a giant stride. I opted for a standing back roll. We got some good video of that. Wet-willie did a giant stride as well. I didn't see what Richerso did. The plan was to slip on down the wall to the bottom and run a "out and back" along the wall. If it got too cold for any of us, we would come up to 30~40ffw and cruise along at that depth. Wet-willie wanted to get a nice photo of himself against the wall. Well, we descended down to find visibility of pea soup. Richerso and I immediately lost Wet-willie and Galscuba. We continued down to 58ffw where the "lights went out" and found the temp to be sixty-four degrees (Brrrr) with it being dark as night. Richerso and I turned on our lights to help keep each other paired up. So, here we are traveling along this wall for several minutes in absolute zero vis with a temp of sixty-four. If you're only a blue water diver, you'd think we were crazy for diving in this. I was very surprised at the conditions. I was expecting something completely opposite of this. It quickly got boring for me and so I signaled to make a ninety-degree turn so we could head up the wall. We went up til the vis cleared up (~30ffw). It wasn't the best but anything was an improvement from where we just came from. After a minutes at our new depth I signaled to turn around. We weren't seeing any fish and there was just nothing out there to see. On the way back we ended up passing our boat and this was a plus. We ventured to an area around the next outcropping that looked really interesting. This was an area that was really laden with rock formations in and out of the water. Huge boulders provided a lot of cover for fish. At least it was a lot more interesting than the past forty something minutes. We all met back at the boat and told of our experiences. Richerso and I agreed we would describe our dive as the best kick butt wall dive we had ever been on. Richerso and I waited with anticipation of the frowny faces on Galscuba and Wet-willie. However, our prank was shot down when they began to describe their dive in the same manner. Doh!
Continued...
.
Our fun-filled and exciting day started with Richerso and I meeting up, by chance, at the Nautical Adventures dive shop at about 08:15. We grabbed some tanks and headed to the marina. Wet-Willie soon arrived at the marina as well as Galscuba. While they continued to bring gear down to the dock, I went inside to get the pontoon boat rental completed. As I'm filling out the paperwork, I inquired about how the boat is insured if an accident should occur. I was told not to worry too much about it and that not much can happen except for maybe some bent up items as you might hit the rock formations. In addition, I was told that there hasn't been a major mishap with one of the pontoon boats "in forever". (Important: Remember this exchange of words.
) With that, I was given a quick rundown on the boat before departure. I was shown that the prop was in good condition as well as the rest of the boat. Then, I was shown how to start the engine. It's all fairly easy and it isn't the first time I've been the "Captain" (lol) of a pontoon boat. Then the rental manager said it was recommended that we put the majority of our tanks at the back of the boat and keep our first dive set up front and ready to go. He said by putting all of our tanks up front that "we might get wet". Boy, that was the understatement of the day right there. So, none of us has been boating on Lake Tenkiller before but, together, we were equipped with three GPS, one VHF radio, three mobile phones, a not-so-detailed lake map from a brochure, and a topo map. We had Tim (Nautical Adventures) provide locations to the best submerged home sites. So, we left the dock at 09:30 for our first dive site: The Mob House.
The mob house has a little gangster reputation to it with characters like Pretty Boy Floyd being attached to it. Conveniently, the mob house was one of the few sites with a buoy. This took a little stress off flocating our first dive site. We found the site quickly and beached the pontoon boat. The site is close to shore. We geared up and were ready to jump in minutes. With dive flag in tow, we buddied up in pairs and started our adventure. All that remains today are some foundation walls and steps. Here's a shot of Richerso at the doorway. It's a rather large site and can keep you busy for about twenty minutes. However, Wet-willie and Galscuba really seemed to be enjoying this dive and stayed down like 40 minutes or so. I think they thought this was some reef dive from Cozumel. lol
Back on the boat, we wanted to travel to the next site during our surface interval. We shoved off from shore and I proceeded to crank the motor. However, the motor wouldn't start. We tried for about fifteen minutes to get that dang motor started and it just wasn't happening. Knowing we were on a tight time schedule, I called over to the marina to let them know of our problem. They told me they would be right out. We waited. Finally, a boat comes around us with flashing lights. I asked the others what that boat was. They said, "That's lake patrol." It turns out they brought the marina help. We joined the boats together and let the kid from the marina board to check out the motor. I turned and said to our group, "Watch him start it on the first try." This incited laughter all the way around. Ten seconds later, the kid turned the key and it fired right up. Of course, everyone was rolling on the floor from laughter now. It turns out that there was one key detail that was left out of my briefing on starting the motor. The lake patrol officer proceeds to ask me for my name. I politely told him as he whips out a thick booklet from his back pocket. As he starts writing, he asks for my address. Ok, now I'm wondering what he's doing with this info. He says, "I'm gonna write this up." Without taking another breath, he asks for my social security number, drivers license number, phone number, etc. I'm now concerned. The peanut gallery is throwing out one liners as he writes. One shouted,"So you get a ticket for not starting your motor and being a hazard?" Another exclaimed, "So, what's this gonna cost?" The patrol officer replies very quickly and in a serious tone, "One sixty-two, fifty." I gasped! Though I thought he was joking at first, it was shaping up to be real serious. Geez, this is turning out to be one expensive lake dive trip. lol A few seconds later he hands me the carbon copy and tells me that it's just a contact report. There is no offense done by us. He has to write these reports up so his boss knows he's doing his job. He let us think we were getting fined the whole time though. LOL We found out later he's a regular jokester. :rofl:
With the engine purring, we head off to our second dive site. This was to be the "wooden bridge." It was part of one of the roads that went through the area but ended up submerged when the lake was made from the water damn project. We found the shore line features that put us in the right area. We formulated a dive plan and went after it. We spent a good fifty minutes zig-zagging back and forth across the area but we never did find the wooden bridge. The visibility was hardly anything to write home about (See Galscuba and Wet-Wille). However, there were some spots along our journey that put us in zero vis. We turned on our lights to better help see each other. We also stuck together in pairs very close. I thought we did a very good job with buddy skills. After examining the topo map again, we believe we were not far enough out from shore to locate the wooden bridge. We'll have to try this one again.
We chose the thoughts of a nice, clear, wall dive for our last dive. There was a nice wall from one of the outcroppings across where we sat for the wooden bridge dive. The topography showed a steep drop to seventy feet or so. I was told there were a lot of fish and it should be clear water. So, we got set up and prepared to jump. For the other dives, we've been donning our gear in the water especially since it's been within standing depth. Since we were positioned over the wall on this dive, Galscuba was going to do a giant stride. I opted for a standing back roll.
We got some good video of that. Wet-willie did a giant stride as well. I didn't see what Richerso did. The plan was to slip on down the wall to the bottom and run a "out and back" along the wall. If it got too cold for any of us, we would come up to 30~40ffw and cruise along at that depth. Wet-willie wanted to get a nice photo of himself against the wall. Well, we descended down to find visibility of pea soup. Richerso and I immediately lost Wet-willie and Galscuba. We continued down to 58ffw where the "lights went out" and found the temp to be sixty-four degrees (Brrrr) with it being dark as night. Richerso and I turned on our lights to help keep each other paired up. So, here we are traveling along this wall for several minutes in absolute zero vis with a temp of sixty-four. If you're only a blue water diver, you'd think we were crazy for diving in this. I was very surprised at the conditions. I was expecting something completely opposite of this. It quickly got boring for me and so I signaled to make a ninety-degree turn so we could head up the wall. We went up til the vis cleared up (~30ffw). It wasn't the best but anything was an improvement from where we just came from. After a minutes at our new depth I signaled to turn around. We weren't seeing any fish and there was just nothing out there to see. On the way back we ended up passing our boat and this was a plus. We ventured to an area around the next outcropping that looked really interesting. This was an area that was really laden with rock formations in and out of the water. Huge boulders provided a lot of cover for fish. At least it was a lot more interesting than the past forty something minutes. We all met back at the boat and told of our experiences. Richerso and I agreed we would describe our dive as the best kick butt wall dive we had ever been on. Richerso and I waited with anticipation of the frowny faces on Galscuba and Wet-willie. However, our prank was shot down when they began to describe their dive in the same manner. Doh!Continued...
.
OP
With our third dive done (4:15pm), it was time to head back to the marina. We had a 5:00pm deadline. With an organized mess of dive gear, we made room to grab our seats and head off. With a slight navigational "error" from the Captain, we were underway in the right direction with the guidance of the remaining crew. Hehe. So, we're motoring along back to the marina. We noticed more boats now than when we headed out in the morning. We're at cruising speed which for a pontoon boat is a lot like jogging. Running over a few wakes sent splashes over Richerso and Galscuba who were sitting up front with most of the gear. It was a good laugh for all. Those smiles would be quickly wiped off our faces in the next minute. Out of nowhere, the boat makes a nose dive into the water that only the captain of a submarine could appreciate. From my seat, the front end of the pontoon boat is in the water and falling. I hear the sound of the motor out of the water and revving. Personal items are beginning to float off. I make a quick sweep and see that everyone aboard is ok. However, I sat there in complete disbelief of what was happening. We are on the verge of losing the boat. I wondered what in the world had caused this. Did we strike something causing a tear in the pontoons? Did we get caught on something? Thoughts from earlier in the day began to cross my mind like the marina manager telling me that there hasn't been a pontoon accident "in forever". Were we about to break that streak? I then thought about the fuzzy logic answer given on the insurance. Oh my gawd, who was going to pay for this? I can't remember if someone said it or we all thought it at the same time. We all realized that it just might have been all the gear in the front of the boat!!! Everyone pitched in to drag all the gear towards the back. After a few minutes, the boat slowly started to float the front end again. Some boaters who saw the ordeal had stopped to help. They gathered the items that floated off and offered a tow. We really appreciated their help. Now that we realized that everything was going to be ok and there was no damage to the boat, the jokes started rolling in. We almost dove our own virgin wreck on this day. We talked and laughed about the details and how the events unfolded from each person's perspective. Our teaching of bouyancy was reinforced on this day. Lesson learned: Always spread the weight out evenly or toward the rear on your pontoon boat. :-D
So who wants to go diving with us?
After handing the boat back over to the marina, we decided to get something to eat since we were all starving. We chose Pine Cove which is located in the Lake Tenkiller state park. Of course, at dinner, we continued to joke about the "ticket", the "sinking" and the other little things that happened throughout our adventure. The weather was great and we all had a really great time. I'd like to repeat our fun minus a few episodes. LOL
It was great to meet Galscuba, Richerso, and Wet-willie. I made a few great friends on Saturday and hope we get to dive again soon.
So who wants to go diving with us?
After handing the boat back over to the marina, we decided to get something to eat since we were all starving. We chose Pine Cove which is located in the Lake Tenkiller state park. Of course, at dinner, we continued to joke about the "ticket", the "sinking" and the other little things that happened throughout our adventure. The weather was great and we all had a really great time. I'd like to repeat our fun minus a few episodes. LOL
It was great to meet Galscuba, Richerso, and Wet-willie. I made a few great friends on Saturday and hope we get to dive again soon.
galscuba
Contributor
I couldn't help but laugh while reading this post! Despite the "mishaps", I had a really great time with you guys. It's always great to meet other divers and share great times and memories together. Looking at the picture from the "grab our seats" link really made me laugh - we look so calm and all of our gear and coolers are still intact. ROFL!!!! To give those of you lucky enough to not experience our boating incident an idea of the excitement that happened just moments after this photo was taken, there was enough water and force to lift my very full blue cooler over the front railing of the pontoon and sent it flying open and scattering its contents all over the lake. Good times!
WOW,,,, you guys had a 'road trip' sounding dive trek!!! What a great report and photos--thanks for sharing. I visited this past weekend with the owner of one of the dive shops in OKC,,,he says the vis conditions of the lake are poor from the upstream dam work and chicken farmers dumping you know what. Sounds like some great stories to remember....and having piloted a few pontoons in my life you gotta pack to the rear--lol.
Thanks again for the story and pictures!!
Thanks again for the story and pictures!!
OP
Update: I added a copy of the "Contact Report" from the lake patrol officer.
Floridawannabe
Contributor
Sounds like you guys a great time. Awsome post and enjoyed the pics with it. I am only about three hours away, maybe some time in the future I might be able to join you guys. ScubaCatgirl was just asking me about TenKiller, but never have been there.
richerso
Contributor
I love you guys (scubagal included in this gender biased word)! What a great time! I loved it! Let's do it again! I even vote that packetsniffer captain the pontoon again. That was good for some entertainment! Maybe we can go find that wooden bridge.
Packetsniffer did leave out one detail. When the boat started to submarine/sink, it was severe enough and scary enough that we all started scrambling for life jackets. I must have clutched my life jacket for about three minutes while I was waiting for this boat to "right" itself.
JR
Packetsniffer did leave out one detail. When the boat started to submarine/sink, it was severe enough and scary enough that we all started scrambling for life jackets. I must have clutched my life jacket for about three minutes while I was waiting for this boat to "right" itself.
JR
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