Canyon lake dive

[shaggie]

Went out diving on Canyon lake last thursday in my newly aquired 12 ft Achilles RIB boat. The weather was a little breezier than I would have liked, but of course being the manly men that my friend DashRR and I are, we went for it. We met at 1:30 at the boat ramp near the south side of the spill way. By the time we got the boat ready and figured out how to get us and our gear all stowed-not to mention getting the motor starting, but that's another story, it was about 3:30. Outside air temp was probably about in the low to mid 40's. We headed west to a promissing looking point about a mile west of where we launched. We decided to beach the boat and do a shore entry to make things easier. Water temp was a not so balmy 50 deg. We dove out toward where my trusty topo map (www.topozone.com) showed the river channel and nice drop off to be. The vis was about 6 to 8 ft, not bad compared to what I've seen lately. First thing we found were about a dozen very odd looking pvc "trees". They looked like the tops of palm trees sitting on the bottom in about 25 ft of water. We continued down the slope to about 55 ft then followed the drop off. Man, I've never seen so many trees covered with mono in my life! The pecan grove at Windy point is a mere glade compared to this. After about 12 min I called the dive, I decided the entanglement hazard was to great. To bad really, since the wall did look quite interesting. After clearing the trees, we putzed around some more and surfaced after a 35 min dive to about 2 ft wind waves. The back of the boat was swamped, the drain plug was stuck-so the boat was heavy as hell. Any ways, we launched and headed for home. Pretty exciting ride back to the ramp when the waves are as tall as the sides of your boat! Fortunately, we were going with the wind. By the time we got back and removed our gear we probably dumped 10 to 15 gal of water out of the boat.
All in all, I'd say it was a good dive, since we lived to tell the tale.

 

[NadMat]

Sounds like y'all had fun. And better vis than has been reported in Travis recently.

12 ft rib, what about a 10 or 15 hp outboard? Not bad to dive canyon lake or travis, just limit the amount of surface distance to be traveled as much possible. But it will make a lot more dive sites around here accessible.

When I first started diving it was mostly Travis, and out of either my dads 17 ft glastron with a 70 hp, or my buddies 12.5 inflatable with a 15 hp. both were fun, but we soon learned to drive to the nearest lake shore access, not the nearest ramp, when using the inflatable. It was nothing to put the glastron in at cypress creek ramp and run to wherever we wanted to dive on travis, although if headed past the pedernales we would usually put in up at lago vista. But the inflatable mostly beat the hell out of attempting a long shore walk or long dangerous surface swim. However, it was what we took with us when we did our do it yourself baha dive trip in 82.

 

[shaggie]

Yea, it was an "interesting" experience. My boat has a 15hp Evinrude. It goes alright, but with 2 divers and gear, could use a little more power. I'll have to figure out how to load it properly and figure out an easy way to enter/exit the water from it without having to go to a nearby beach and take a chance of poking a hole in it via a piece of broken glass or what not.

 

[texdiveguy]

Thanks for the story of your adventure,,,,keep at eeeer!!!!!

 

[Mack Diver]

Hey Shaggie.

Dashrr was in the shop and made mention of getting the motor started. I'm glad you guys had a good time.

 

[NadMat]

Yea, it was an "interesting" experience. My boat has a 15hp Evinrude. It goes alright, but with 2 divers and gear, could use a little more power. I'll have to figure out how to load it properly and figure out an easy way to enter/exit the water from it without having to go to a nearby beach and take a chance of poking a hole in it via a piece of broken glass or what not.

Back roll entry is best way in, to exit, remove your tank/bc and clip to a line from boat, turn your back to boat, stick hands thru line along top of tube, then curl your legs up and over into the boat till you're kneeling on the deck. It is a lot easier than it sounds. As far as loading properly, that just takes trial and hopefully not too much error.