Four good dives this weekend. Saturday: Woke up, looked out the window - cloudy with mist. A sensible, non-addicted diving junkie would have rolled over for more zzzs. OK, I was not processing incoming information and went throught the Saturday routine and prepared to go diving. I started with a stop at a garage sale near the house where I saw a wetsuit on a hanger. A guy (recent Ohio transplant) had a 7mm O'neil Wetsuit with only 4 OW training dives on it (looked like it just came out of the showroom) in my size that I picked up for $25 - oh, he threw in a set of 7mm boots also my size and with only 4 ow dives, just to get rid of them. Well, maybe things are looking up. Arriving at the Lake - dark clouds, mist and cool - well maybe not looking up. My dive buddy, yeah only one other today without common sense, and we suited up and took to the water. Wait a minute - we had vis. Yeah, good fresh water lake vis but I wasn't prepared for this as the lake is supposed to be turning over (well looking back, it has had time to complete the turn). We dropped down to the three big rocks with 10' vis all the way - where are the thermoclines? Big bass here. We dropped on down to the wall (80' wall now 65' wall courtesy of the drought with the lake now 15' down). It was still a bit dark (9:30am), but we had 15' vis with lights. Geez. We swam the entire 80' wall and decided to drop down to the 100' wall. OK, vis started to go south here- 4-5'. We eventually moved back up the slope and hit the 67' ledge (OK do the math and subtract 15' - we need to name this stuff without depth references). Moving through a bit of the forest and back down a bit we swam through the tree stumps and rock ledges and saw two cats. Why are these small fish down here? Checked the temp 73 degrees -same as the surface -maybe the flip has already occurred as there is O2? Moving upward and back south we had great vis on the north wall (OK we did name something without a depth name) to the big stump and then along the 57' wall (do the math again) - big bass. We swam through the trench, past the angel statue and upward to the 35' ledge (think safety stop nowadays). Another big bass and crappie. From there we moved upward along and through the aquatic weeds -lots of small fish and two huge crappie - and onward to our exit 70 minutes, max depth of 85'. We were a bit blown away by the vis. If it had been sunny,we would have had 20' in some areas. Dive two - still dark clouds - involved moving a recent placed cow's skull (thanks John) from the 3 big rocks to the table rock where a now heavily deteriorated cow skull was placed. This was a good spot. We dropped down to the angel statue, through the trench and south along the 63' ledge (math yet again) and downward to the 80' wall. More small fish here. It was onward to the plane fuel tank and upway past captain bob to the plane. We spent a bit of time on the plane in the 15' vis - three big bass and a crappie. We then swam west along the 40' rock ledge (yeah , math) and had 15' vis. the vis here is usually 5-6' so this was nice. After a bit we headed upward and East along the dam rocks for an extended safety stop. After the stop, I kept seeing these silt clouds up around 10' so I investigated a found a carp the size of a buick (well maybe 2 1/2 -3'). 75 minutes with max depth of 76'. A great day of diving.
Sat. afternoon and night brought wind advisories to the lake
and I wasn't expecting much Sunday (waves splashing on mud bank = crap). We got in two good dives, however vis was variable (5-10'), maybe 15' on the 80' wall when the sun came out. Dive one was a repeat of dive 1 from Sat. except at 83' on the 100' wall we hit this 3 degree (cooler) temp differential and a water layer below had 15'+ very clear - no particles water. It was dark - need lights - but very clear. 72 minutes at 90' max.
Dive two started as a chinese fire drill. We were going to move one of the swimming pool filters to the other grouping of filters near the 35' ledge. This filter was in 15' of water and I found it, but had no idea of its location in relation to anything else. Add a bit of air and it is neutral. We swam downward to the correct depth and headed north - but nothing. OK I must have missed it, so we turned south (vis was 5' going 1'or less swimming back trhough our silt trail. After a bit and not finding the grouping,decided to move up the slope to find a known point. Well, we were further north than I thought. Took the correct heading and found the grouping (10' from where I made the turn). Needless to say we had lousy vis in the area so I dropped down and tried to see if I could navigate to the north end of the 80' wall directly - nailed this (about an 50 yard swim in 5' vis). Feeling a little better about my navigation (ego not as crushed
), we swam south along the entire 80' wall to the fuel tank (aka missle), repositioning another pool filter near the line for something else of interest to see. Upward past capt. bob to the plane. We swam in and around the plane a bit. Remembering were I saw this huge bass the day before in this depression on the bottom, I went back to see if it was there. Yep. Appeared to be laying eggs. Didn't move though we carefully got within 4' (10' vis). She followed us with her eyes, but didn't move. I didn't think that this was supposed to happen this time of year, but oh well. We swam off not disturbing her and completed our safety stop after seeing this marbled colored cat) along the dam rocks. 69 minutes for 78' max. Not a bad weekend in spite of the weather and wind.
Glad to hear that you made the move back OK. I'll send you a box of Clarks Hill silt that you can smear on your mask, maybe that will help with the transition. Now I expect to haer about you breaking out the chainsaw in a couple of months so that you can go diving (ice diving
Glad to hear you've keep your sense of humor (sounds like you'll need it). Keep on diving!
