Dive Condition Reports

[ftwdiver14]

Stillhouse Hollow Saturday August 15

We did just 2 dives and we were loooking for the 2 boats and the Old Water Treatment plant that Psiborg and I found a couple of weeks ago.
Wwe found our way to a platform and followed the lines off of it. Both went nowhere.
The first dive was 47 minutes and we got to 41' at 77 degrees F. The vis was around 5' to 8'.
After a lunch at the Marina we set out on dive 2..once again looking for the water treatment plant. We followed the lines and veered off a bit to do some searching, we found nothing. That dive was about 38 min. wit ha max depth of 38' and 77 degree F.
Once we go out from our second dive I spotted something orange. While my buddy went back to the car I checked out the orange object. It was a small bouy locating another platform. I am sure that was the platform Psiborg and I located last time out. That one has the lines to the boats and treatment plant. I now know the cordinates and will go back in a couple of weeks to find that plant.

I also bought me a nice new dive flag ,bouy and 100' of line only to have the flag come off the pole when I was surfacing on my second dive...damnit! So I lost a whole $10 flag.

 

[ZzzKing]

Lake Murray, OK. Tucker Tower

6-10' vis. Darkening below 30'. Light needed below 35'. Mid 80's at the surface, low 70's at 35'. Lots of boat/seadoo traffic. Nice swarm of small (12") stripers during dive 1. Large granite cubes and sunken boat during dive 2.

Other Swampers in attendance: Texdiveguy, kunk35 and Timeliner. Newly designated Swamper and recently certified diver DenMark. Yellowkunkfish was represented in the form of some delcious brownies. Fun was had by all.

 

[tlt]

Windy Point (public)
Date: 8/17/09 1pm - 5pm
Location: Windy Point (Public)
Surface Temp: 102
Water Temp: 81F @ 73ft dive 1 45
Water Temp: 83F @ 56ft dive 2 46

Visibility: 3-5ft @ 30ft, 5-8ft @ 45ft 7-10 @ 60+ft actually vis was all over the place.. but dive light lit things up well.
Comments: drifted north to P1 windy point dropped down and headed west to look for pinto. Found Pinto, headed south to look for sailboat, found P4 Platform. Continued South, found large sailboat 2 @ 50', dropped a little west to look for pecans, found several ragged looking trees. Came back up to about 40-50' continued south, found 1 very large tree, with big branches. Sat on the branch for a few, to take a break. Gradually headed south from there, back to Bob Wentz park entry point, inspecting along the way. Dive 2, scoreboard recon and inspecting various grottos.

map
http://www.windypointpark.com/uwmap.asp
park
http://www.co.travis.tx.us/tnr/parks/bob_wentz.asp

 

[paulw]

8-18-09 6:30PM
Windy Point Public
Divers - carrielsal - paulw
Air Temp 101
Water Temp @ Surface 90
Water Temp @ 62' 82
Vis to 30 - 3 to 5'
Vis 30 to 45 - 5 to 10'
Vis 45 to 62 - 3 to 5'

We went in by the port-o-potty's and dropped down to 60' to the trees where the vis opened up some but we came up out of the tree line and headed north, the vis was as tlt reported yesterday all over the place. We found the best vis between 35 and 40 where sometimes it opened up to about 10' but we would run in and out of clouds of muck. Watch out for fishing line in the tree branches I found and pulled out some and really silted up the place doing it.

 

[PeppermintPaddi]

Tues 11AM and 1PM
Buddy - Blazerdiver
(I'll borrow PaulW's format)
15-20' viz 5ish feet
20-50' viz 10ish feet
50-60' milk soup
60-75' viz 15ish feet in places
75-105' great viz - as far as the (small led) flash lights would go

Headed straight down from Porta Potty Cove. Touched 106ffw and turned the dive due to buddy being in a shortie. Great! viz below 75ish feet. No silt to speak of, dark but the flashlights didn't reflect much from water muck. Just a little chilly at 71F. Mostly dove around 60ffw, just below the 1st thermocline. Just above that thermocline it was milk soup. Found the fin we saw on a previous dive so I brought it back. Will post description on the bd.

2nd dive - Put in at the 1st cove, went straight out and found the cache at 57'. Headed 'up river'. Viz wasn't too bad around 40ish feet. Mark found a couple of grottos at around 35' that bled many streams of bubbles when aired up. Dug down one of the bubble ports and it was gravel as far as I could reach. Makes me wonder about the stability of those grottos. Spooked the biggest grandaddy perch shaped fish I have ever seen in my life. _Easily_ 3X the size of a 'big' perch. That was at about 15 feet as we were coming back in, so I wasn't narc'd.

 

[heavyjeffd]

Saturday August 22nd; 7:30AM
Comal River, NBTX, Solms Park

Air Temp: 80-95F (arrival, departure)
Water Temp: 72-75F consistently
Vis: 10-30'

For the most part it was the same ol' river, nice water, great vis and toober loot.

This morning however it was a bit cloudy, I'm guessing due to the rain from last night. I wasn't kicked up silt or sediment, it was just a white haze in the water. Once the sun was up in full it was not as noticeable. Vis varied a little as a result.

Additionally, the current was noticeably stronger than usual. Far from unmanageable, but definitely a bit swifter than it usually is.

Still a great/fun place to dive though. If only it were 20' deeper!

 

[James R]

Dives with lake Travis scuba this morning.

1 Starnes island
we dropped down to about 50ish and went along the wall. Found a super sweet pair of red sunglasses and came across the tree with no trespassing sign, pimp addidas high tops, and naked lady manequin. Tried to find the expensive glasses without luck, but did pull a pretty big anchor out.
Vis 5 to 20 (for real) depending.
Temp 89 surface, low 80s at 50 iirc.

2 Tom Hughes park
there are some really big grottos going down the wall. Lots of fish, including some really good size catfish and a school of bass. Unfortunately a lot of cans and other trash.
Vis 0 to 10 or so. Quite poor at safety stop.
Temp 89 down to mid 70s at 78'

 

[LVX]

Windy Point Public - 8/23

Ian, Brian, John and I met at Windy Point. We were all diving doubles with stages and wetsuits accept for John who was crazy enough to wear a drysuit.

Temp on the surface was 94, water temp was 85 on surface and down deep about 64.

We dropped down to 115 ft and followed the river bed south. Lots of trees but not much else. About 20 minutes into the dive I had an equipment malfunction and my primary regulator decided to stop delivering my breathing gas. Luckily my good dive buddy John was right next to me and we started a slow ascent back up. Once we hit 60 ft, I switched to my deco gas. At that point, I started looking at my primary regulator. I took it apart and when I put it back together, it started working again. Go figure... anyway thanks John...

One thing to note, according to Ian's brand new trimix computer, the water temp was 522 degrees....

Vis down deep was about 10-15 ft.

good dive overall...

Layne

 

[oldschool]

Stillhouse Hollow - 08/26/09 - 6:30 PM
Maximum Depth - 34 ft.
Time: 44 minutes
Temperature - 83 degrees. No definite thermoclines, only a few random pockets of cooler water at the same depth.
Visibility - 1 ft to 3 ft.

Dived off of the point near the pavillion. Had some difficulty finding the platform, now at 15 ft, because of the very low vis. Once at the platform, followed the lines to the boat then to the power plant. Due to the extremely poor vis, turned around once we hit the edge of the power plant site. Didn't want to risk being off the guidelines with obstructions in the existing conditions.
Still enjoyed it. No boat traffic at all. It was my first dive since returning from Bonaire late July. Back to reality, I guess.

 

[James R]

8/29
comal river

parked at solms and just stayed in the area there. Got there before most of the tubers, only a few divers. The place sure needs the trashfest, more cans and other crap than I expected. Had a fun, quite long, dive of 124min on one al80. Max depth 12.
Vis was really good, probably 40' or so. Lots of fish and a few pretty big turtles.
Temp 73 as always.