The Great Travis Traverse

[FIXXERVI6]

This is the profile of our dive last night. It's from from my Sensus Pro which always measures a few feet shallow.
Max depth on my computer was 154. Its clear from this that the bottom was sloping upwards, not as quickly as I might have hoped though.
Where we turned was about 10 feet shallower than the deepest part of the river channel. By my calculation we were at the 530 contour line.

Zinc did a great job running the reel. I'm glad I volunteered him into that.

Many thanks to Cavemn for acting as surface support. We had a lot of tanks and appreciated help in carrying them. He brought the beer as well

Good diving and good people. Perfect evening.

Thats actually VERY good and about the slope I expected to see, if you look at the 3D topo that really shows how gradual of a slope the opposite side is compared to WP side, lemme look for it and re post it.

 

[FIXXERVI6]

This gives you a really good idea of the difference in slope, and looking at this the the profile you posted, we are for sure accross the river bed, what I didn't want to happen is end up in that little gully on the other side, which is where it might be into I dunno, no way to tell without a survey, eitehr way I hope tree tie offs are close by, that will really help speed up line laying, tie and go none of this haulin, hammerin, blowin the vis crap

 

[Zinc]

Suggestion... before we secure the new section w/ stakes, we should run to the end (w/ stakes carried) and check the direction on the way and at its terminal, checking in reverse.

At this point we can correct any direction issues by moving that stake N or S, whatever distance needed to make the whole 400' section true east/west or whatever direction misses the gully or has a secure tie off. Then add stakes on the return trip, silting on the way out...

 

[ianr33]

That makes sense.
Might be worth doing a dive to take out the kink at the start of the line,continue on to the end of the original line and take a note of the exact direction its heading in. The lines pretty taught so it should be straight.

 

[Zinc]

I'd like to focus on the long line while vis is good. With the gas and time, we can correct from the back end, hopefully w/ a hard tie off, then just straighten out in reverse.

I want to hit the current "temporary end" explore another 400' if needed and if no luck swim an arc on the way back in hopes of catching any objects in between.

Hard tie off on other side is top priority IMO

This does require longer dives...

 

[Zinc]

A good piece of advice from an earlier post...

A word of advice to anyone thinking about looking for that line and trying to follow it... The river bed (where that line runs) is basically a big ol' mud flat with what is usually pretty freakin' poor viz. It's not a dive for anyone without experience at depth, in cold water and low visibility conditions. Trimix, doubles (or a rebreather), decompression gases and drysuits are the name of the game down there in the deep, dark and cold. On top of that you probably won't be able to read your compass or gauges and the flat surface of the bottom of Lake Travis has very, very few reference points. It's not for the faint of heart and certainly not for the inexperienced. If you're not prepared for all of that...mentally, physically, gear and training...save yourself some scary moments, and possibly your life, and get the experience and equipment before you start exploring down there. Just my two cents...I'm not your momma. LOL!

 

[Zinc]

.....

 

[FIXXERVI6]

I'd like to focus on the long line while vis is good. With the gas and time, we can correct from the back end, hopefully w/ a hard tie off, then just straighten out in reverse.

I want to hit the current "temporary end" explore another 400' if needed and if no luck swim an arc on the way back in hopes of catching any objects in between.

Hard tie off on other side is top priority IMO

This does require longer dives...

hitting something hard to tie off on the other side would be super nice but its critical to keep the line secure all the way or sections may need to be re laid in if they get damanged, and being out 800 feet with increased risk of spaghetti line is no fun!

 

[Dark Eternal]

Is the line knotted? Ive been toying the idea of going out to do the survey in the next week or 2.

 

[FIXXERVI6]

Is the line knotted? Ive been toying the idea of going out to do the survey in the next week or 2.

The first chunk is knotted, some of the tie offs had to be re wrapped a few times which will skew the actual numbers a bit so while the knots ARE every 10 feet they may be wrapped a few times around a post so overall total length will be off a few feet.

zinc/ian is your addition knotted?