Dive Condition Reports

[ianr33]

Date: March 12, 2011
Location: Mansfield
Water Temp: 58 F @ surface, 52 @ 40'
Visibilityretty good. 10-15.

Shallow skills dive to check out some gear and sidemount stages.

Travis is COLD at the moment. I think 52 is the lowest temperature I have ever seen here. Presumably due to the record breaking weather a couple of weeks back.

 

[cindycycle]

Had two great dives with livn2dive on March 11.

Cleaned algae and coontail from cream o' wheat and river bed areas. Lots of algae due to low spring flow - we need rain, people!

Water clarity and temperature same as usual.

It was nice to get back in Spring Lake after a couple of months out of the water.

 

[James R]

Lake Travis Scuba Charter 3/13/2011

It's cold. It's silty. However, it's getting better! :cool2:

Wreck Alley
Around the pecan grove route viz is about 2' after dropping over the wall. Shallower water around the Toyota, upside down pool etc, its really not too bad. 6-10' if not a little better in some areas. The deeper houseboat is in the silt layer.
Temps: 56 surface, 54 at 93'


Starnes Island
Above 50-55' viz is really not bad, opening up to maybe 15' or so. Below that, it's 1-2' max. Due to viz closing at 50-55, stayed above that and picked through the rocks looking for treasures and only found a bungee cord and beer cans.
Temps: 56 surface, 54 at 65'

 

[cavemn]

Date: March 12, 2011
Location: Mansfield
Water Temp: 58 F @ surface, 52 @ 40'
Visibilityretty good. 10-15.

Shallow skills dive to check out some gear and sidemount stages.

Travis is COLD at the moment. I think 52 is the lowest temperature I have ever seen here. Presumably due to the record breaking weather a couple of weeks back.

March 19
Ditto

 

[cindycycle]

Max. depth 23 feet
Avg. depth 8 feet
Water temp. 70 F
Clarity below average (probably due to our activities)
Dive time 52 mins.

Livn2dive and I worked in Deep Hole for the science diving program. Deep Hole looked pretty clean so we moved on to Arch Site. Algae growth is really heavy around Arch Site, but the coontail is not too bad. There are a lot of school groups visiting Aquarena now that spring is here, and lots of boats running. We heard there are some new pilots being trained, so we watched our heads when crossing the shallows.

 

[paulw]

Windy Point
Divers: Dave55 - DTm - paulw
Surface Temp: 63
Temp below 45: 53
Max Depth: 80ft
Vis 0 to 45 : 15ft
Vis 45 to 80: 4 to 6 ft

The lake is starting to warm up and above the thermocline the vis is nice, about 15 ft. The thermocline is at 45ft and the vis really goes south form there along with the temps, temp drops to 53 at 80ft and the vis drops to 4 to 6ft at the best. It was a great day to make a couple of dives.

 

[carlislere]

Mansfield Park Dive Area
Air temp: 55 degrees
Max Depth: 89 feet
Dive Time: 46 minutes
Water temp: 65 degrees above 20 feet
52 degrees at 89 feet
54 degrees at 60 feet
Visibility: up to 15 feet down to 55 feet
4-6 feet below 55 feet
Dove to pay respects to Danny Faas Memorial and clean it up a bit. Moved up towards the dam, then turned and came back to the wrecks and worked on line drills. Found a snorkel by the 50 foot deep sailboat. There was about a two foot catfish laying on the bottom just above the shallow sailboat. During the safety stop, a school of 12 carp swam in front of me then turned and encircled me for about 15-20 seconds.

 

[driftwood]

Spring Lake, San Marcos, March 24th

Vis, 60'+
Temp, same
Spring flow, 150cfs (not good but holding)

Livn2dive, John Payne and me did the Cream of Wheat to Catfish Hotel run. All the shallow transitions are clear. Cream of Wheat is in good shape. Ossified Forrest is clear of coontail and algae. Most of Riverbed is clear of coontail and algae. Big increase in the number of salamanders and especially small crayfish at Catfish Hotel. Seems like they are moving to the more reliable low pressure springs.

Comment on my vis estimates. I always base my best guess on vis at the start of the dive. On the COW to Catfish run, right after Diversion looking into COW, I make my guess. For Deep Hole, right when I hit the slope looking down at the USGS instrument package, I look left toward Faultline.

 

[Dive South Padre]

Little Sara, 9 miles off shsore of South Padre Island had 75 degree water with 40 foot of viz. See divesouthpadre.com for pictures in the Captains Log

 

[Puddle Dipper]

We dove Athens Scuba Park Saturday3-26 Bottom temp was 68 and visibility was well over 30 ft. We even saw a couple of bass over by the DART bus.