CSSP Ad Hoc Report -- May 18

[richerso]

So today is May 18. I had to do yard work this morning. Yuck!
Anyway, after yard work was done, I was bored. Decided late in the day to drive over to CSSP to wash off the yard crud. Yea. I know. I could have taken a shower but I decided to clean up in Robert's quarry instead.

Got there late in the day just in time to watch most people/students leaving for the day. Oh well. That was probably for the best. I did one quick dip 55 mininutes 42 ft max depth. Temp on top was a balmy 72F. Nice. Temp at the bottom was 64F. The 5mm neoprene just almost wasn't enough for that temperature. I spent a lot of time hanging out around the thermocline. Visibility was a surprising 8 - 10 ft. I was pleasantly surprised.

I set off in search of the twin silos. I am fairly certain I swam past them without realizing it. I kept looking for that "drain" pipe thing that runs down the south rock wall and leads directly to the silos. I never did see the drain pipe. I even looked for the pipe on the top side and I never did see it. Am I just blind or has the pipe been removed?

In other interesting news:
On my drive over to CSSP, I almost became one of those interestingly spectacular crash accidents that you hear about on I-20 from time to time. I was about 3 miles west of Terrell. There were a number of vechicles in front of me. We were all driving 60 - 70mph. I noticed several vehicles hitting their brakes. I started to tap my brakes but then I realized that these vehicles weren't slowing. They were stopping! :11:

So I slammed on my brakes a lot harder. I still couldn't see the reason for the braking action. I could only notice that all of the cars and trucks were stopping. Okay. I am slamming on the brakes a bit harder now. Check the rear view mirror. Yep. Here comes that Ford F-250 pulling the 20' horse trailer. Nope. That guy's not stopping in time. Oh! This looks bad! Fortunately, the F-250 managed to swerve to the inside left to avoid hitting me. Seeing all of this unfold, I managed to squeeze my truck as far to the right side of my lane without hitting the large tractor trailer to my right.

It worked out alright. The F-250 slid off the left side of the road into the median but managed to maintain control and reasonably bring the truck and trailer to stop. About this time, I looked in front of me ( I am still rolling to a stop here while stomping my brake pedal ), and saw a large dog right in front of my bumper. Yep. He was just standing there. He was shocked and scared and couldn't figure out which way to run. He kind of spun around in place a few times trying to decide which way to run. My truck came to a stop within about 1 ft. of hitting him. The F-250 swerved to my left and came to a stop such that I could read the license plate on the horse trailer.

Yep. That was interesting. All vehicles involved in the melee just kind of sat stationary for a few seconds in the middle of the road. All of us drivers just kept making eye contact with each other in disbelief. The dog ran off. I finally inched forward and talked to the driver of the F-250. All human cargo was safe; but all of the occupants immediately jumped out to check on the horses in the trailer. Go figure.

And that's my CSSP report for Sunday, May 18, 2008

 

[texdiveguy]

............... :11:

In terms of the plastic pipe we all have used as a nice landmark....Robert pulled it....I did the SAME dang thing you did John on Sat.--lol. I asked Robert and he says I bet I will hear from others about it--I laughed....now also just one 'blue' buoy.

 

[richerso]

Why would he do that? At least without soliciting opinions and advice from the divers who use his park and this particular land mark ?

Alright. Now I gotta figure a new navigation technique to get to the silos. At the least, it should be an interesting navigation challenge. An opportunity to improve my nav skills as it were.

 

[TwoBitTxn]

Glad you're ok.

Nice report.

TwoBit

 

[ZzzKing]

............... :11:

In terms of the plastic pipe we all have used as a nice landmark....Robert pulled it....I did the SAME dang thing you did John on Sat.--lol. I asked Robert and he says I bet I will hear from others about it--I laughed....now also just one 'blue' buoy.

Are you sure that's what happened to it? I heard Frank was looking to upgrade that hydration device he's been working on. Thought maybe...

 

[ZzzKing]

Yep. That was interesting. All vehicles involved in the melee just kind of sat stationary for a few seconds in the middle of the road. All of us drivers just kept making eye contact with each other in disbelief. The dog ran off. I finally inched forward and talked to the driver of the F-250. All human cargo was safe; but all of the occupants immediately jumped out to check on the horses in the trailer. Go figure.

And that's my CSSP report for Sunday, May 18, 2008

Where I'm from someone probably would have pulled out a .22 and taken care of that dog.

Glad to hear you're alright.

 

[cruiser]

Sorry about the wreck, richerso, I must have left before it happened. Glad you're all right.

I was out there today, too, and later than usual for me. After my first dive most classes had packed up and gone home. First dive was at 12:55, 2nd at 3:00.

Viz is still good, lots of lush vegetation, some very tall.

There were a few territorial bass that I encountered. One was on the cabin cruiser. There was a big area around her right eye that's black. Looks like a genetic color variance rather than an injury, so I nicknamed her "Patches." She darted out at me and nipped my fins as I swam away. So I doubled back to see what all the fuss was about, and there on the ledge of the boat was a group of eggs. Each egg was very small, a little bigger than a pinhead and the eggs covered about a 1 square foot area.

Meandered around some more in the lake and encountered another bass holding its territory, but in the vegetation this time. Got a closer look and there was a smattering of eggs there, too. Along the rock wall was a cloud of teeny baby fish, looked newly hatched.

So I'm getting low on air and I'm wondering how far I am from my entry place. Start looking for the white drain pipe, I'm not there yet, nope, not yet, but there's a place along the wall that looks like a pipe had been resting there. Never saw the pipe, and now I know why That was landmark for me underwater, I knew I was close to the dock when I saw it.

It was a beautiful day to be diving

 

[richerso]

I too noticed the clear "easement" on the wall that looks like a pipe had once rested there. I almost, just almost, started to follow that clearing down to see if it went to the silos. The easement was in about the right location. The only reason I didn't chase it down to deep water is, this is wimpy here, I didn't want to enter the cold water layer below the thermocline unless I knew the silos were there because I knew it was going to be a quick bounce down and back up due to water temperature.

 

[texdiveguy]

I too noticed the clear "easement" on the wall that looks like a pipe had once rested there. I almost, just almost, started to follow that clearing down to see if it went to the silos. The easement was in about the right location. The only reason I didn't chase it down to deep water is, this is wimpy here, I didn't want to enter the cold water layer below the thermocline unless I knew the silos were there because I knew it was going to be a quick bounce down and back up due to water temperature.

Heck, after looking back about '1 city block' having past that invisible pipe....I saw just one blue marker....shot a heading and swam for it....once there I just took my sweet time dropping down to the chilly bottom...was fun. Guess we can always go back at run a rope from were the pipe used to be!

 

[richerso]

Funny you should mention the idea of running a rope. I was just contemplating that same thought.