Lake Whitney 8/13/09- Soldier's Bluff
A buddy of mine and his dad went out in a boat to explore Soldier's bluff adn try to find the infamous Dr. Pepper truck.We didn't find it, but had a great time all the same!
Max depth-65 feet
Temperature- There were around 4 thermoclines at this lake. temp stated at 87 degrees and by the end of the last thermo it got down to 71. Thermoclines were at 6 feet, 31 feet, 46-47 feet, and 63-65 feet. I wore a 3 mil long and was a little warm.
Viz- Again, there were several layers of visibility. From 0-25ish feet it was green haze, viz of about 1 foot. After the first thermocline viz opened up quite a bit, 3-4 feet, but it began to get dark. Past 40 feet, vis opened up to the range of my light, abotu 6-7 feet, but the clarity of the water was good, i imagine with a brighter light you could see much farther. Below 40 feet there was no light at all from the surface. If your light wasn't shining somewhere , it was black.
Smell- We were warned about the rotten-eggy smell of the bottom of the lake. The warnings are true. My buddy's a smoker, he claims he only smelled a faint odor. However, the smell was definitely there! After 50 feet or so, the smell hit's you like a smell-o-cline, Bam, there's a smell that's soaking through your mask and into your reg. It's bearable, unless your buddy kicks your mask and partially floods it. then it's like you are eating a hot month old egg that's had sulfur dusted onto it. Although you get used to it after a while.
We did 4 dives while searching the area for the truck. We clipped a finger reel to the anchor line of the boat and played out line till we came to the end of it, then did circle sweeps. We hit several overhangs, some that went quite deep, but with the reel and the line we were fine. Although we did not find the DP truck, we found 3 other cars. One was unidentifiable and sits at 36 feet, the other two are at 26-27 feet. One was unidentifiable as well, but -the one that is upside down is a Nissan Dalton 301GX, whatever that is. We figured they drove the cars off the cliffs and let them sink, as the engines were all there and they were really banged up.
All in all, it was an excellent dive spot, one that i would go to again. yeah, the sulfur smell is there, but it's not bad enough to keep me from diving it again, although i might smear my mask with baking soda first!
Oddly enough, the pitch darkness is something that i really enjoy, because you have to go slow and sweep your light back and forth, then get a mental picture of what the terrain is like before going on. I look forward to finding the DP truck sometime in the future!
