Best gear for diving in turbid Louisiana estuary

[dumpsterDiver]

For this type of diving I would recommend a Sherwood Magnum. They are inexpensive, bullet-proof and the first stage has a dry seal. Depending on the weight of the instruments you should also invest in a lift bag. A diver should not clip heavy items to herself. A light may also be helpful as long as you don't kick up too much debris.

Me too. I used that first stage for nasty golf ball diving and it worked forever. Totally sealed from fine mud and grit and works fine.

 

[Rich Keller]

We are conducting an acoustic telemetry study on spotted seatrout in Lake Pontchartrain, and a few of our buoy assemblies have failed. Basically, the buoy is now gone, but the receivers are still anchored to the bottom so we are trying to recover the acoustic receivers.

I've recently taken a low-visibility dive class, but it didn't prove all that useful so I will soon be doing private instruction with a commercial diver to brush-up on some skills. I'll also be doing a few check out dives in Lake Pontchartrain before I try to go recover this equipment.

The pre-training sounds good and I think the type of reg you use is a nonissue. The next step is to find the receivers. Did you mark their location with a gps when they were placed? How big are they? How heavy are they? Are they transmitting a signal that can be tracked or was that lost when the buoy was cut? Of the ones you did recover is there any indication of how far they sank into the bottom? Is this one piece of equipment or more? What did you use for an anchor if the equipment needed additional weight to hold it in place?

 

[Mark Michaud SELAUSAR]

We are conducting an acoustic telemetry study on spotted seatrout in Lake Pontchartrain, and a few of our buoy assemblies have failed. Basically, the buoy is now gone, but the receivers are still anchored to the bottom so we are trying to recover the acoustic receivers.

I've recently taken a low-visibility dive class, but it didn't prove all that useful so I will soon be doing private instruction with a commercial diver to brush-up on some skills. I'll also be doing a few check out dives in Lake Pontchartrain before I try to go recover this equipment.

Ashley, I live in Slidell and probably have more experience in the inland waters from here to St Francisville, to Venice tahn most around here.. How big are the units you are going to look for? The depths can be 2' to 15' to a couple of holes in to 100' range. There can be dangerous current, and none at all. The Lake is pretty big and conditions differ due to rain, wind, current, the Mississippi River being diverted through the spillway, etc. You don't need a ffm or a public safety course to dive this. I do have some things that can help, search systems you can easily build for a few dollars, and things you need to know about bacterial infections from cuts and scrape. If you pick the right conditions it can actually be a decent dive, as long as you don;t mind dirty and dark water. You can email me at diverecoveries at charter dot net if you want. You can also check my FB page under my name and see the pics I have from said diving around here. Best of Luck Mark Michaud

 

[ashleymarie0112]

There location was marked with a gps, but the coordinates can be off by 100ft sometimes due to gps error. Lake Pontchartrain has pretty much 0 visibility so this can be a problem. The receivers we are trying to recover are about 12" tall and 3" in diameter, and only weight ~3lb. They are attached to yacht braid rope that is moored to a 100lb anchor, so we were going to try and cut them loose of the anchor rather than having to use a lift bag to get the entire assembly to the surface. These receivers are not able to be tracked and we have about 5 sites that we need to dive.

 

[Rich Keller]

The simple way to do this is to drop a small anchor attached to a float right where the missing receiver should be then go down attach a 30-40' search line to the anchor. If the vis is good you could run an expanding search out from the center looking for the receiver. With bad or no vis I would let out all the line and do one slow sweep holding the line very close to the bottom. The idea here is to feel when the search line hits the anchor holding your receiver. I use a weighted handle for my search line so when my line comes in contact with something I can lay it on the bottom and follow the line back to the item my line came in contact with. I you do not find it the first time use your original anchor and float as reference and drop other floats around it for your next search attempts. Once you find it all you need to do is tie your search line to it so you can go from your float to your search anchor to your receiver. I would not use a lift bag to recover this but rather a continues feed rope come along. All you would need to do is attach the rope from the come along to the 100lb anchor and let your topside crew crank it up for you.

 

[captain]

I have dived Lake Pontchartrain all my life, no special or particular regulator required. Main thing is good buoyancy control to keep from stirring up the bottom, learn to move about at a 45 degree head down angle. Nice pics Mark.

 

[Mark Michaud SELAUSAR]

Ashley, email sent. Best of Luck. Mark

 

[Nemrod]

Lake Pontchartrain viz is not necessarily zero. A simple rig, with, I am going to say it, a J reserve is ideal. A good cutting tool or two is also needed and I do not mean a fancy chopped down steak knife as is popular nowadays or some other kinda chuck wagon BS.

N