Hi BillP!
.....who'd have thought my 1st scuba 'rescue' would be a weed-packed catch bag?
...I guess Bridget's right when she says one can never turn one's back on hydrilla!
...saw that white Scubapro tank of yours....nice to see another diver diving those nice, big steels, although I still think I've got the record there with my LP 120's/HP 120 and HP 130 steels. (Tabatha tells me I need to take up yoga, her friend Ann said Tabatha uses no air because of the yoga training.....I might look into that as so far my answer to air consumption 'issues' has been load up on monster tanks...the brute-force method to diving.)
Dove 2 tanks Sat and another 2 tanks Sunday....'weeded' on Sat and participated in some barge diving on the submerged archeology reconstruction site on Sunday.
The barge motor was 'down'...so us divers got to jump in the water and use 'fin-power' to propel the barge to the site, which was a nice little aerobic workout, especially on the return trip upstream.
.....hey, maybe could get TUSA to sponsor the project financially as I used my ZOOM fins to do it?
Gary from Houston Scuba Academy shot some nice UW video of the group during the reconstruction, which he shared with us after the dive as we got to watch the replay on his laptop computer.
It's not as easy as it sounds....we created quite a siltout removing old iron poles and heavy wooden planking from the area to install the replacement supports...a little errie as the current is modest and it takes a while for things to wash downstream.....so it was 'interesting' doing the work without smacking into other divers under very murky (temporarily at least) conditions.
I'm told scuba divers are the main attraction @ Aquarena, the tourists reallly get a kick out of seeing the volunteer divers in action.....topside I'm always bombarded by the tourists 'onshore' who pepper any divers they see with questions....I never cease to be amazed how the vast majority of the public views scuba diving as exotic.
The weather was delightful, and a modest number of divers this weekend made it feel as if I had my very own private dive resort.
I wholeheartedly agree that it's worth one's while to take the Scientific Diver course...especially if you need a place to dive during the winter months in north Texas....unless you have a drysuit, Aquarena's constant 70--72 degree water temps are the only available dive location within driving distance during winter...which right there is more than enough reason to participate in their program.
Karl
