Blue Hole August 3,4

[ToddK]

Jon (NMDive01) and I hit Blue Hole on August 3,4. It was the first time in 10 months I'd been diving [I have a 5 month old & 2 year old]. We ended up taking 10 tanks since Stella was on vacation that weekend, and we couldn't get airfills. I was definitely out of practice for the first two dives on Friday, but we did better on Saturday.

The bottom of Blue Hole is different, but still very recognizable. The rubble pile of broken rocks on one side of the bottom (goes from 70 to 60' feet deep) had been reduced, and some of the previous dredging pits seemed to be connected together now. We were able to peer down through the grate and see some of the passageway, and also noticed the hole behind the grate.

We got the first dive of the day in on Saturday (7:15AM), and the water was still a little milky. Sandia Scuba had a class of ~15 people, but in general there were less divers than normal, however, there were more local swimmers. All and all, it was a good time out. -Todd.

 

[RonFrank]

Glad you had a good time! I wonder when or if the milky color will disappear. Seems like the outflow was much stronger than prior to the dredging.

On hot weekends there are a lot of swimmers. I think they are somewhat local, and I notice they like to jump off the rocks a lot. This does not really impact the diving, but be careful of surfacing near their entry point. One of these days a swimmer, diver or both are going to collide and get hurt.

 

[ToddK]

My buddy Jon also thought the outflow was stronger. I was very disappointed that the clarity still seemed impacted from the dredging. Here's to hoping that if they dredge next year, they pick the month of March, not June!