Fantasy Lake condition report

[DukeAMO]

Conditions at Fantasy Lake today were... interesting. It was very warm (85 degrees at the surface, 77 degrees at 40 feet), with terrible visibility (6 feet). The thick clouds and rain showers didn't help. At the back window of the bus, all we could see was the back of the bus, not the sides, not the bottom. When looking down more than a few feet, all we could see is black. It was so dark by the rock crusher, we didn't drop down the side of it, because our small lights couldn't cut it. Honestly, we didn't see much at all.

On the other hand, it was a perfect day to practice using nitrox, buddy skills, underwater navigation, air-sharing drills, hovering, shooting SMBs, mask-off drills, and weight checks. Whoo!

And then of course we had some nice beers and conversation afterward, with a few people from the scuba club. So we had a lot of fun anyway. I'd do it again in a second. ;-)

 

[jscott099]

Now that's the Quarry that I remember. Now days I live in Florida and dive in the springs near Branford. Thanks for the report and safe diving.

 

[herman]

Nice to hear.....I have a AOW class to DM in a few weeks....sounds like the night dive can be done early.

 

[fpsndiver]

Guess I'll wait til' New Years to make my annual pilgrimage. By then the temps will have dropped and vis will have risen. Yay, Lake of Fantasies!!!!

 

[DukeAMO]

Nice to hear.....I have a AOW class to DM in a few weeks....sounds like the night dive can be done early.

Hah, I remember Arturo working as the AI for our AOW class. He had to work really hard to keep everyone close enough together to see everyone on the night dive, and that was back in May, when it wasn't so bad. Even on that night dive, I remember one point on the out-and-back compass run where the vis was so bad we couldn't read our own compass. Fortunately that was only 10 feet from the bus (so we could, in fact, hit the broad side of a bus). Good luck to you!

We still had fun on the night dive... my favorite part was surfacing to the sounds of crickets and cicadas.

P.S. You might want to show the students how you can put your light over your compass and make it glow in the dark *before* the night dive. That would have been nice to know.

 

[thebigdiver]

Was out there today DukeAMO and think the water was a little colder. We only went to the top of the plane that was moved, the platform, VW jetta and glass bottom boat. Needless to say the search for missing diver was interesting. VIS was exactly as you described. I had low temp reading of 70 and we didn't get deeper than 35ft on any dive. Oh yeah, and your husband made some excuse about his signal device coming loose and unrolling. I told him I would get something started in here! Haha, we had a fun, cold day in Rescue Diver today.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

We were there last weekend. Water temp was a solid 72 degrees all the way to 50'. Viz was pretty poor however - worse than when we were there August 4th. At that time the temp was 85 degrees near the surface and 60 degrees at 50', so the major change has been a nice normalization of temperature in the water column.

Current viz in the former deep, but now shallow Nomad:

 

[DukeAMO]

As my dear husband and new scubaboard member "Mr. Sparkle" said, "if you can find a missing diver in that, you can find a missing diver anywhere"!
I was hoping it would start to clear up before our November 8th night dives, but now I'm not so hopeful. It wasn't nearly that bad when we did AOW in May.
Well, at least I'm not claustrophobic. As long as my buddy's in sight, I find it kind of cozy to swim in the haze. As long as we can find what we're looking for. The guide lines are very helpful for that.

 

[thebigdiver]

I apologize DukeAMO, your site report was from months ago. and yes, Mr. Sparkle did great in the muck and for the 8th, arms distance at night will be good. Of course it was a little better vis until the 30 plus ECU new dive students hit the lake plus the dive students that were on the platform. Yes you almost had to run into the things to find them. See ya'll on the 8th.

 

[Mike Campbell]

There will be thirty more ECU students there today and then I will drag my thirty up there tomorrow. After that I suspect the quarry will miraculously clear and the Indra will drop to near nothing since we start seven days straight diving her with the ECU folks on Monday.
If the lower thread is correct the upside of that is the white shark won't be an issue. He/She will be able to eat us before we even see him/her. Tho' honestly most of the inshore whites are usually juvenile males I give the females their due.....about everything.
Mike