Dive Condition Reports

[heavyjeffd]

Saturday July 18th and Sunday July 19th; 7AM both days
Comal River, NBTX, Solms Park

Air Temp: 85-95F (arrival, departure)
Water Temp: 75F consistently

Saturday, went with Jack Ryan and messed around with his camera rig (he was testing everything prior to a Flower Gardens trip), swam upstream a bunch then drifted with the current, pretty fun. Great vis, nice when the sun came out, really brightened things up. Got really crowded by 9AM however when we were leaving.

Sunday, vis was really good that early as their are no tubers (though there were probably 8 other divers), spent most of my time closer to the "chute" as it's got a nice wide open area that's 10-12' deep and just did some digging around for loot (found some Ray Ban's) and just hung out with the fishes. Sun was not as bright but the water appeared more clear.

Same ol' river, but it relaxes me, it's close to my house and certainly better than not diving at all.

 

[lachrimae]

Date: 7/25/09 9am to 12pm
Location: Windy Point (Public)
Surface Temp: 95-100
Water Temp: 77F @ 65ft, 70F @ 90ft (felt much colder than that )
Visibility: 2-3ft @ 30ft, 7-10ft @ 70ft, 5-8ft @ 90ft
Comments: Saw the scoreboard and a huge overhang/grotto I'd never seen before @ 40ft. It's the one with the natural hole in the middle of of the grotto that looks large enough to swim through.
Viz gets worse as you head South towards the tip of the point.
90ft viz was surprisingly better than expected although you have to be careful not to kick up the dense silt since it creates a near black out.
This is the deepest I've been in L. Travis but I think we were near the beginning of the old river bottom because it flattened out considerably around 85ft. Due to the number of trees and dense silt, any further and I'd use a reel.
Pitch dark starts around 75ft.

 

[therealwwdiver]

Air temp: 94
Water temp @ surface: bathwater
Water temp @ 30': bathwater
Vis: 1' to 6'

vis is way off compared to a few weeks ago. I tried far side of lake on the second dive but vis was awful there as well. Average was probably only about 3 or 4 feet. I couldn't ever see my fins clearly.

 

[James R]

Been diving with classes a lot at Aquarena, but I think it's consistent enough to not bother on those

-

7/26
Dive 1 -- 9:14am
Oasis Wall - Lake Travis
This was a really good dive! The viz around the wall, overhangs, grottos, etc was up to 20' or so in some places! Best I've "seen" here in the hand full of times I've been to this site. 75 degree water at 64 feet, 86 degrees at the surface.

Dive 2 -- 11:05am
Shaker Plant - Lake Travis
Bottom here is extremely soft, and is easily stirred up so we were careful to stay off the bottom. Found a bunch of old coal pipe, lumber, etc from the plant. Did not come across the "monolith" concrete building. Followed a S by SE heading and found a really neat cave and wall with a school of little shad and a lot of little holes/tiny "mini-caves" about 1 to 2" in diameter with tiny blue and red fish hiding in them.
Really cool to see some of this, as it is normally 150-160' according to people that were on the boat today.
Viz worse at this site, 2-8 feet.
Temp 74 at 70', 86.7 at the surface.

As usual, a great time had by all with Lake Travis Scuba. :cool2:

 

[chrispete]

7/24/2009
Windy Point Public
Air Temp: 95
Water Temp: 87* @ surface, 83* @ 45'
Viz: 5-10' to 30', 10-15 below 30'
Max Depth: 45'

Diving w/OW student, found scoreboard but it has been pushed off of the wall and now sits at 40' with the cabling going up the wall to the original spot. More fishing line than usual hanging around right now.

 

[chrispete]

7/25/2009
Windy Point Public
Air Temp: 100+
Water Temp: 88* @ surface, 83* @ 50'
Viz: 1-5' to 30', 5-10 from 30' to 50'
Max Depth: 25' with class, 50' on solo recon dive

Combination of boat traffic and south wind was stirring up silt pretty good. Viz was highly variable but rather low overall.

 

[chrispete]

7/26/2009
Windy Point Private (Barstow's)
Air Temp: 100+
Water Temp: Variable at surface, probably ranging from low 80*'s in spots to high 80*'s in others (kinda odd), 82 @ 40'
Viz: inches-3' to 20', 3-5' to 30', 5-10' to 45'
Max Depth: 45' with class, 55' on solo recon dive

Combination of classes, boat traffic, and south wind was really stirring up the silt. The stirred up water appeared almost white next to the emerald green of the clearer water when viewed from the top of the stairs.

 

[psiborg1812]

Balmorhea- San Solomon Springs

Did 5 dives, great viz, got some good pictures and video. Chased catfish, Practiced diving with my homemade Hawaiian rig, good times! Lots of people there, but that was ok, there were only about 5 other divers. Temps were still hanging around 72, worth the drive, IMO.

 

[tk trekers]

Got to meet tpolson88, ftwdiver14 and psiborg1812 at the lake today.

Quite a few boats and PWCs using my dive flag for buzzing practice today, people there obviously had no clue what it meant. The air temp was 97 to 99 and the surface temp was very close to 90. First thermocline was about 30 to 33 feet and dropped to 78. Second thermocline was somewhere in the mid 40 foot range and dropped to 74 degrees. Viz was anywhere from 5' to almost 10' depending on depth and how much the wind, swimmers and boats were churning it up.

Also had what looked to be a 3 year old boy chuck a rock into my driver's side mirror while I was grabbing a tank from my truck. Fortunately I was there and his parents were there so they gave me their info to make good on the repairs and they live in Frisco not far from me in Plano so hopefully that will turn out to not be an issue.

I forgot to mention that August 1st through August 9th is Corp of Engineers Appreciation Days and entrance to the lake is free.

 

[chrispete]

8/2/2009
Windy Point Public
Air Temp: 90*
Water Temp: 89* @ surface, 83* @ 45'
Viz: 5'-10' to 40', 10'-15' from 40' to 50'
Max Depth: 50'

Water clarity was good with little wind to stir up the silt.