What is going on with lake 288 in Houston

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

I think you're looking at short-term changes in conditions and trying to extrapolate those to long-term trends without examining the factors involved.

We've had a bunch of rain over the past few weeks. All of that runoff is going to have a negative effect on both viz and temp. (I was at the Comal River this past weekend. What is normally some of the best viz in Texas was now chocolate milk. It'll clear up again once the rains subside.) On the plus side, I've heard water levels at all of the local diving spots are going up thanks to the rainfall.

Local viz at our dive spots is going to change both seasonally and with day-to-day weather variations. Our dive spots are not getting sawmpier.

On a side note, there are some cave lines run to and from various points at the bottom of 288. They're not maintained very much, but if you swim about 3'-5' off the bottom, you can sometimes run across one of those and then follow them from point to point around the lake. Not a perfect system, but sometimes a nice switch from running a compass course the whole time.

South Texas lake diving isn't glamorous. It's mud pit diving. But it IS great experience for diving in less than ideal conditions.

I remember the first time I went to 288 Lake (then it was called the Reef). I'd rented gear and returned it without even getting it wet. I swore I'd never dive there. As it turned out, I ended up logging my 100th dive in that lake, and dozens more in probably every month of the year since then. And I'm a better diver because of it.
 
Quick 288 report from May 21st.: Temp is upper 70's/low 80's at the surface, mid/low 70's starting at 15' (gradual thermocline.) Viz was good (10-20') above 25', 2-5' below 25'.
 

Back
Top Bottom