BH Report Feb 11-13

[toddthecat]

Just got back from Blue Hole after a weekend of diving. Arrived friday night and went straight to a night dive before even checking into the hotel. Time was 8:07 pm and air temp was...cold. Had a great dive down to 71 feet and we were the only ones there (always good).

Saturday we arrived about 9 am and were there until about 7pm. The entire day there were no other dive shops and just a few regular/semi-regulars. Ran through OW and Advanced stuff. Air temp about 55. Considerable amount of particulate in the water but no one disturbing the bottom.

Sunday we got there around 830 and left at 1. Air temp warmer than the day before. Both days had blue skies. Fairly windy on Sunday. Again, no one was there with the exception of maybe four other people.

Visability, in respect to BH, was fairly poor. There was a LOT of particulate floating around and we really aren't sure why. Tons of crawdads moving around though which was neat. Much of the usual stuff around the hole appears to be missing as well. Perhaps a recent cleanup has occurred?

Anyway, it was a great weekend of diving and having the hole pretty much to ourselves was sweeeet

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

I was there on Saturday also. I arrived at 8:00AM and the water was crystal clear throughout my entire first dive, maybe 80-90' vis, not the best but decent.

Second dive a large group of divers in the water on the bottom, several were vertical roto-tilling like there was no tomorrow 3-4 feet off the bottom. Not sure if it was a class because they were separated in buddy teams, but I hide over on the corner watching the sand storm approach. Vis dropped from 80' to 35' in 10 minutes.

Venus is still missing. Weather was pretty nice considering the last week of cold and snow.

 

[robint]

Weather here in ABQ was gorgeous all weekend, would have been perfect for BH. Unfortunately we had other plans, plus Ron has come down with the crud so doubt he could dive at all. I think we will be over in March one weekend.

Sucks when you get bozos bouncing off the bottom. They ruin the vis for everyone else.

robin

 

[RonFrank]

I does not take much to ruin visibility if the bottom is made up of muck. Unfortunately BH, and Perch fall into that category. I bet diving and vis would have been GREAT at Perch Lake!

Glad you had fun, and it sounds like it would have been a perfect weekend (few divers, decant weather) had not a few divers mucked up the vis. BH usually turns over (clears) in a day or less.

 

[DandyDon]

Yeah, when the mucky bottom gets stirred up, there is not a tremendous amount of flow to push it up and out, replacing with clean water. It kinda floats around and settles back the bottom. You don't see that much in the drainage stream below the spillway.

I wonder if there would be more outflow if they opened the spillway, but that would lower the water level several feet - not an idea popular with anyone I'm sure.

I have wondered if a 4 to 6 inch pipe with adjustable valve, one end just below water level under the spill, other end just above the bottom of the hole, air sucked out of a side valve to start a siphon, moving half of the outflow thru it instead - sucking particle laden water off of the bottom - would help much?

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

I thought of a cleanup too. I am sure there would be plenty of divers who would willingly man a siphon hose on the bottom for free. Legal liabilities would probably derail such a plan but it could clean up the hole.

The other thought would be to change how the water enters the bowel. One would think the original natural system worked for 1000's of years without building up sediment. Yet the relatively new safety grate has resulted in visibly new sediment every year. So a change in design is probably needed to both prevent sediment and prevent stupid divers from trying the caves. Probably directing the water inflow to wash the the bottom like a toilet bowl in a circular fashion. I suspect the powers to be in Santa Rosa are not aware of the issue and probably don't want to spend money to fix a long term problem after blowing their wad on the convention center.

 

[robint]

Yes, Doug, once they put in the snorkel they changed the "flow" across the bottom, causing the silt to build up there. Used to be just a grate but divers were messing with it constantly. The snorkel keeps divers away but also messes with the silt issues.

A few dive shops used to take tanks down to the bottom and open the valves, in order to loosen up all the sediment and force it up and out of the Hole. They quit doing that 4-5 years ago, when the Corp of Eng'rs started doing their dredging. I think it needs to be done again, along with cleaning off all the algae on the walls. I had suggested here last year that I would be willing to go over mid-week one day and do nothing but clean... most of the people here laughed at me. Well, I think a broom and a shovel on the bottom could really stir up all that silt and get it out of there. Vis would be 0-10' for a day, but well worth it overall. Anyone wanna go help me?

We would have to do this on a weekday, like a Mon or Thurs, otherwise people would be throwing a fit.

robin

 

[DandyDon]

Now I remember. I kept seeing the grate in my mind and wondered what he meant, but yeah - they did replace it with the elbow. Forgot, but I remember wondering why now? Divers messed with the grate? I presumed it was secure, no?

I remember the Army Corp Engineer divers cleaning, shutting down the hole for weeks, but was hopeful that it'd be worth it - but I really didn't see any differences after?

Digging up the bottom sounds like fun. It'd be nice to see how much muck we could get over and out...?

Here's some Corp cleaning pics I shot in June 2006 on the way to Gallup...

 

[toddthecat]

@DandyDon - Thank you a TON for those pictures! I wrote (and had approved) a PADI Distinctive Specialty for diving at Blue Hole and these are great for my classroom portion!!!

@Robin - I agree with you completely and would love to take part in that. However, I'm about 5 hours away and don't get to BH unless I'm teaching. If it were a little more accessable I'd totally be on the list!

 

[DandyDon]

@DandyDon - Thank you a TON for those pictures! I wrote (and had approved) a PADI Distinctive Specialty for diving at Blue Hole and these are great for my classroom portion!!!

@Robin - I agree with you completely and would love to take part in that. However, I'm about 5 hours away and don't get to BH unless I'm teaching. If it were a little more accessable I'd totally be on the list!

Oh those are some of the cleaning crew. I have much better pics of BH, but you can probly get better ones from others here.

You have a Padi card for the BH....?