Dive Condition Reports

[Bill Parker]

March 16, 2013:

West Bank (Flower Gardens)

Vis: 10-20 feet
Water temp: 66F (1st dive), 68F (2nd dive)
Surface: 70s and cloudy
Waves: as bad as 6 feet or more with a couple of great waves that broke the mooring bouy
during the 2nd dive
Current at depth: Mild
Current at the surface: I could swim against it and make progress up current but not for
very long

[video=youtube_share;12t8b8KJERQ]http://youtu.be/12t8b8KJERQ[/video]

East Bank/rig dives were cancelled after the mooring buoy broke and the M/V Fling was
moved to the Stetson Bank where conditions were more agreeable.

Stetson Bank (Flower Gardens)

Vis: 20 feet
Water temp: 66F
Surface: 70s and cloudy
Waves: 2-3 feet
Current at depth: Mild
Current at the surface: I could swim against it and make progress up current but not for
very long

[video=youtube_share;fubh3t7u9ts]http://youtu.be/fubh3t7u9ts[/video]

People hardly ever report on basic conditions in the Flower Gardens. I wish they would do
so more often. It would be nice to see what the conditions could be at a particular time
of year.

 

[driftwood]

Spring Lake, San Marcos
March 21, 2013

Spring Flow:110cfs
Temp: Same
Vis: 50'+

Cleaned up algae in Riverbed this morning. Hand cleaning ineffective, scooters are needed. Ossified Forrest, Little Riverbed and Cream of Wheat in good condition. Diversion and Training Area needs to have Coontail removed. Heavy silt in the Training Area.

 

[oldschool]

Stillhouse Hollow Lake - Scuba Park
March 23, 2013 @ 4:40 PM

Water Temp: 59 degress at max depth of 26 ft.
Visibility: 12 to 15 ft.

Increasing fish activity as they are agressively guarding their nests. "Attacked" by both large mouth bass and fresh water drum. Fun dive.

 

[driftwood]

Spring Lake, San Marcos Texas
March 28

Temp: Same
Spring Flow: call it 110cfs

The AC staff had us switch out the dye trace monitors and taking water samples this morning.

That means diving in the Headwaters on the first part of the dive. First, its shallow. Second, navigation is a cast iron bitch. I asked the lake pro, John Payne, about bearing and distances. His reply was prayer and the help of God was my best hope. He was right. Third, its a fair distance from the usual Diversion through Catfish Hotel run. We missed Cabomba (if we were there, I couldn't find the "bug"). There are good reasons why this area of the lake is generally out of bounds to divers.

We did the Diversion to Catfish Hotel run for the next series of five sites. Lot of Coontail laying on the bottom (ie, don't bother trying to float it) around Diversion. Cream of Wheat is still a mess (that wont change until the flow rises). Little Riverbed is in not too bad a shape. The transitions into/out of Ossified Forrest are getting pretty shallow. Ossified Forrest is looking pretty good given the low flow. Riverbed is a mess with a lot of clinging algae on the bottom. Hard to clean by hand. Catfish Hotel has a lot of algae and Coontail.

We didn't have the air to get to the last part of the run. (Kettleman's, Cypress Point and Deep Hole)

There was a group of divers from the Texas State Biology Department training on some new gear to remove silt. We can all be thankful they were in the Training Area.


Here is a list of the sites currently being sampled

Headwaters: Crater Bottom, Salt and Pepper I & II, Weismueller, Cabomba

Middle Lake: Diversion, Cream of Wheat, Ossified Forrest, Riverbed and Catfish Hotel

Bottom Lake: Kettleman's, Cypress Point, and Deep Hole

 

[Earl Grey]

288 Lake - Houston, TX - 3/29/2013

Water temp 64F @ 29' and warmer on the surface, about 66F. Viz was best I'd seen at 288 and was about 15'. The fish were pretty active and it was easy to navigate using the cave line between points of interest.

 

[driftwood]

April 5, 2013

Temp: Same
Vis: Call it 50' but cloudy
Spring Flow: 110cfs

The vis was cloudy due to recent rains. Since we had a strong north wind, we were assigned to float coontail along the sides of Riverbed. In addition, the transition between Ossified Forrest and Riverbed was cleared down to the silt.

 

[oldschool]

Blue Hole - Georgetown, TX
04 / 05 / 13 @ 1040am.

Water Temp - 63 degrees at the staggering max depth of 11 ft.
Viz - 8 to 10 ft.

In 30 yrs of diving, I've found some pretty interesting stuff, but today took the cake. I recovered a 14" Stihl chainsaw. Man, did I get some looks when I came out of the water carrying that! Dive knife? We don't need no stinkin' dive knife.

 

[Bill Parker]

April 6, 2013

Tyler State Park lake

Visibility: 10-15 feet
Thermocline: ~10 feet
Temp above the thermocline: 50sF
Temp below the thermocline: 40sF @ 26 feet
Surface: Sunny and up to 70sF

A few bass (big ones) and clams observed. In very shallow areas the
bottom was thickly covered in some kind of green aquatic plant.

 

[Culcuhain]

CSSP
Viz: 15'
Temp: 58F at Platform
Didn't get below 30, but still stayed at 58F.

 

[driftwood]

Spring Lake San Marcos
April 11

Temp: Same
Spring Flow: 110cfs

Worked in Deep Hole on the sand bank opposite of Fault Line clearing algae. The only thing different about today was that the Met Life blimp was heading north over San Marcos and having one hell of time fighting a headwind.