Anybody up for a boat dive this Saturday?

[Narcd_dvr]

There were a total of 5 divers - myself, Teknadv3x (Dave), k-valve(John), Shawn, and a newbie diver with the yellow snorkel (sorry, I had to mention the snorkel). Buba Dives runs a great operation, IMO. There was plenty of room on the boat for everyone to setup their gear and never felt like a cattle boat, which I've been on a few. Buba knows the area really well and a very competent boat captain.

Overall, it was a great day for diving and not a whole lot of metal shredders (motorboats) plying the waters. Dave, John and Shawn found 3 anchors and 1 outboard motor during the 2 dives.

Dive 1: Tom Hughes park (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong)
Max depth: 115'
Dive Time: 42mins
Visibility: 25 - 30ft
Deco Time: 5mins

I paired up with Teknadv3x and we dropped down to 100ft until the viz opened up. We then followed the wall where we found several huge grottos at around 110 - 115ft.

Dive 2: The Oasis wall
Max Depth: 121ft
Dive Time: 49mins
Deco Time: 10mins
Temp: 79degrees

I know, the second dive should always be shollower than the first, there I said it This dive was pretty much the same as the first and saw several huge grottos. The viz was between 25 - 30ft. Towards the end of the dive, Dave (Teknadv3x) found an anchor and brought it up using a lift bag.

 

[texdiveguy]

There were a total of 5 divers - myself, Teknadv3x (Dave), k-valve(John), Shawn, and a newbie diver with the yellow snorkel (sorry, I had to mention the snorkel). Buba Dives runs a great operation, IMO. There was plenty of room on the boat for everyone to setup their gear and never felt like a cattle boat, which I've been on a few. Buba knows the area really well and a very competent boat captain.

Overall, it was a great day for diving and not a whole lot of metal shredders (motorboats) plying the waters. Dave, John and Shawn found 3 anchors and 1 outboard motor during the 2 dives.

Dive 1: Tom Hughes park (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong)
Max depth: 115'
Dive Time: 42mins
Visibility: 25 - 30ft
Deco Time: 5mins

I paired up with Teknadv3x and we dropped down to 100ft until the viz opened up. We then followed the wall where we found several huge grottos at around 110 - 115ft.

Dive 2: The Oasis wall
Max Depth: 121ft
Dive Time: 49mins
Deco Time: 10mins
Temp: 79degrees

I know, the second dive should always be shollower than the first, there I said it This dive was pretty much the same as the first and saw several huge grottos. The viz was between 25 - 30ft. Towards the end of the dive, Dave (Teknadv3x) found an anchor and brought it up using a lift bag.

Thanks for the recap....sounded like a great time.....so how old was that OB motor?

 

[Broussard98]

Aight Jack-@$$es. Lay off my yellow snorkel I'm the proud (..yellow snorkel toting..) newbie and co-finder of the outboard motor. Chalk it up to beginners luck, but I thought it was a nice find. Thanks to Shawn for staying shallow and hanging out w/ me. Next time, I will know to ask if anyone is staying shallow before the trip.... I really had a great time!! I definitely recommend the Buba Dive, and I hope to dive with y'all again soon.

 

[Teknadv3x]

I know, the second dive should always be shollower than the first, there I said it .

Enrique do not feel bad about how you pulled those dives off.

Be aware that DAN backed off their "no reverse profile" stance
and currently have no particular position on it being more dangerous.
Seems that the "common wisdom" wasn't based on actual science - just conjecture on how it
should work, and it turns out the actual backup for the belief just isn't there.

Go here:
http://www.undercurrent.org/UCnow/articles/DeepDive200005.shtml

Dave

 

[k-valve]

Hey, Brian, I liked the bright yellow snorkel, tank and fins! I always knew where you and Shawn O. were even from down where I was diving! ...and next time someone make fun of your gear, give 'em one of these: :mooner:

Seriously, we all had an awesome time. We had a great group with us and Shawn D. (Buba Dives) runs a great dive trip out on the lake. He's a kick in the pants to hang out with and really knows his diving. He took us exactly where we wanted to go and ran the dives like drift dives, following our bubbles and picking us up within feet of where we surfaced. I'll definitely be heading out with Buba Dives again! :god:

The diving was great! Enrique gave a darn good trip report, so I won't repeat that. The vis was excellent and I ended up with a 19 minute deco obligation at the end of my dive. Nobody much cared about waiting. I think Shawn D. (Buba) kept 'em all entertained and they were taking bets on whether I found something or was meeting my deco obligation. No winners though...I found the two anchors on that dive.

In fact, we found all kinds of stuff. Shawn O'Shea was real proud of the golfball he brought back to Buba. My best find, IMHO, was the lady's bikini thong I found. Unfortunately, the gal who left it at 50 ffw was no where to be found. Ouch! Angie just hit me in the back for typing that...ummm, so I guess I shouldn't be that proud of the thong. The next best thing was the 2.5 hp gasoline motor I helped Brian get topside to Buba. I also found a couple of nice anchors as did Dave. Buba racked in the goodies on that trip for sure!

We had so much fun that Shawn O. and I decided to head back to town for tank refills (EAN 32) and hit the water again out at Windy Point for two night dives. On our first dive we kicked over to the public side and went down there. Vis was great again 20-25' to at least 100 ffw. We didn't venture much deeper than that. Water temps are still in the warm range. I dove my shorty during the day and night dives and was plenty warm at depth. On our second night dive we kicked from the south to the north end of Barstow's and stayed really shallow. I don't think I broke 35 ffw and spent A LOT of time at 8-10 ffw. We saw an amazing range of aquatic life...sleeping brim, tons of catfish, more snails and catfish fry than I could count, and even a crawfish. As one would suspect, the aquatic life is very different when comparing day and night diving.

We got up early to beat the OW classes and did one more dive the next morning. We pretty much did a couple of solo dives on this one. I ended up at 113 ffw where the vis went to nil pretty quick out at WP. This was very different from Tom Hughes the day before, but I had a report from another diver (Dan) who said Mansfield was poor after 100 ffw too. Not sure what's going on with the lake in that regard. Anyway, I hit the trees at about 100 ffw an swam around in them for a bit before turning back due to poor vis. I likey da trees.

Nothing out of the ordinary on the morning dive, just more time UW at Barstow's...and another reason to book with Buba Dives again and do something different when diving Travis.

Cheers...
JohnA

 

[Hemlon]

Excellent report, John. It sounds like the group had an awesome time!

 

[texdiveguy]

Thanks John for the great run-down!!

 

[Narcd_dvr]

Dave, thanks for the link. Now, I won't feel bad whenever the 2nd dive is deeper than the first.

@Brian, I might be going diving this coming weekend, if you're up to it, just PM me.