Balmorhea Jan 28th.....

[scubajoh44]

I've been there when it was snowing and the water felt great!!! The colder the air, the warmer the water feels. Of course I stayed in the water as much as I could.... :0)

(Hi Don!)

 

[dgreenh]

Diving Balmorhea is awesome when it is snowing. Just make sure the hot water is working in the showers BEFORE you jump in.

 

[richerso]

Wow! This thread became popular all of the sudden!

I haven't seen any posts on here; but I have it on good word that Arlington Scuba Center is going to be doing a class this weekend as well. By my count, that's one, two, three, four, five, six . . . . . . at least six shops that are doing classes this weekend.

Geez, this place is going to be busy! I want to say "Y'all have fun" but I am already committed so I guess I'll be having fun with you. That pool ain't that big. Go figure.

Arl. Scuba, Surf. Int. Scuba, Amarillo, Lubbock, Belton, Toyahvale . . . . . . did I miss anyone ?

 

[Foo]

Reports, please! How was the trip to Balmorhea? I would like to go out there, but dang it is probably a 10 hour drive for us!

 

[Willie]

Reports, please! How was the trip to Balmorhea? I would like to go out there, but dang it is probably a 10 hour drive for us!

Richerso and I carpooled out there on Friday and arrived about 530pm. We did one dive that evening and then two on Saturday morning. Water temp was 73 on the surface and 75 at depth. The max depth we found was 19'. Water was very clear, we figure in the 30' range.

There were quite a few shops/classes there and at times there were quite a few divers in the water. We managed to miss the crowd most of the time. I think we did about 2:40 total time.

We decided to do some siteseeing in the area on Saturday afternoon instead of doing more diving. We drove up to Ft. Davis, then Alpine, then Marfa, then the loop around to McDonald Observatory & ended up at Davis Mountains State Park for dinner at the lodge. Then we drove out to see if we could spot the Marfa lights and headed back to Balmorhea.

Very nice and relaxing dive road trip. A lot of driving though.

Willie

 

[texdiveguy]

Richerso and I carpooled out there on Friday and arrived about 530pm. We did one dive that evening and then two on Saturday morning. Water temp was 73 on the surface and 75 at depth. The max depth we found was 19'. Water was very clear, we figure in the 30' range.

There were quite a few shops/classes there and at times there were quite a few divers in the water. We managed to miss the crowd most of the time. I think we did about 2:40 total time.

We decided to do some siteseeing in the area on Saturday afternoon instead of doing more diving. We drove up to Ft. Davis, then Alpine, then Marfa, then the loop around to McDonald Observatory & ended up at Davis Mountains State Park for dinner at the lodge. Then we drove out to see if we could spot the Marfa lights and headed back to Balmorhea.

Very nice and relaxing dive road trip. A lot of driving though.

Willie

Willie,,,,sounds like you guys had a good trek west.....and glad to hear the diving was enjoyable. Thanks for the trip report. Alan

 

[amascuba]

Yes, It was pretty fun. I had to work an open water class so I didn't get to just do my own thing, but non-the less it was good. The water level is a little low right now, so the max depth is 20' (altitude corrected at 24&#8217 from the springs not flowing as much as they usually do. The water temperature was 75 at depth except for in places where the mouths of spring were located; I noted temperatures of 80 and 82 at the mouths of the spring. Visibility was pretty good for the most part, except when the o/w classes got into the water and silted up parts of the spring, but it cleared up pretty quickly.

It was cool to see ducks swim down to about 13 feet and dig through the grass and pull out crawdads and swim back to the surface. The softshell turtles were out in droves this weekend. Usually they aren't out and about when so many divers are in the water. They probably had some people feeding them earlier Saturday morning. I had a close encounter with one. It came face to face with me and hung around me for a few minutes, before returning to it's baby turtle. Like always, saw tons of mexican tetras, catfish, crawdads, and the comanche springs pupfish seem to be doing pretty good. Also for the first time on this trip I saw some live fresh water snails. I usually only see the shells of the dead snails, so that was pretty cool.

The only thing that sucked about this weekend was the weather. I had watched the weather before leaving this weekend to see what the weather was going to do. The weather people said it was going to be nice, sunny, and about 70 all weekend. What they didn’t say is that there was going to be a northwest wind that was going to take your breath away when you got out of the water. If had known that I would have brought a dry suit, but oh well.

 

[Willie]

It was cool to see ducks swim down to about 13 feet and dig through the grass and pull out crawdads and swim back to the surface.

The ducks were a definite highlight for us as well. I forgot that you were going to be there or I would have asked around and introduced myself. Richerso and I were there for fun and not with a class. We wandered around from time to time asking if groups were from Lubbock. We had planned on meeting scubajoh in person. I was a grey headed fellow wearing overalls, except when I was geared up of course. On saturday of course I had my grey jacket and hood on because of that wind.

Willie

 

[texdiveguy]

The ducks were a definite highlight for us as well. I forgot that you were going to be there or I would have asked around and introduced myself. Richerso and I were there for fun and not with a class. We wandered around from time to time asking if groups were from Lubbock. We had planned on meeting scubajoh in person. I was a grey headed fellow wearing overalls, except when I was geared up of course. On saturday of course I had my grey jacket and hood on because of that wind.

Willie

When those ducks are on the bottom feeding and you are looking at them from a distance they remind me of inverted bowling pins!

 

[scubajoh44]

The ducks were a definite highlight for us as well. I forgot that you were going to be there or I would have asked around and introduced myself. Richerso and I were there for fun and not with a class. We wandered around from time to time asking if groups were from Lubbock. We had planned on meeting scubajoh in person. I was a grey headed fellow wearing overalls, except when I was geared up of course. On saturday of course I had my grey jacket and hood on because of that wind.

Willie

I think I did see you. Where were you set up? We were at the farthest end beside the "Kiddie pool" area. We had a pretty large group. We got in the watere about 1:00 Saturday and finished up about 5:30. Sunday we were finished a little before 9:00.

I had never seen the ducks like that. That was pretty cool, but the visibility was worse than I had ever seen there. Maybe it's just because I was hanging with the OW students. It seemed a little better Sunday morning. I'll PROBABLY be back on Feb 25th. Maybe I'll see some of you then. I'm sure I'll be using my gray and yellow wetsuit again...... Look for me. :14: