Lake Murray July 25????

[richerso]

I won't make this an official report for various reasons; mostly because I would like to give that privelege to one of the other attendees to the Great Murray 08 Dive.

I managed to show up at 9:00am on Saturday. Bumbled around Marietta Landing some looking for familiar faces. I didn't find any. The Landing was packed today! Very crowded! A lot of unfamiliar divers were milling about; but mostly it was just non-diver type people hanging out at the lake.

I wandered over to Buzzards Roost (had to look that one up on the map) and found the big Welsh flag that the Kunks seem to perpetually fly. Met up with them just as they were departing camp to head to Marietta Landing for the day's first dive. There were a lot of logistics things going on here. Kory had to run over to Scuba J for various reasons. Rhonda let me try one of her brownies. Delicious!

Illini Fan and I did one dive together for 61 minutes. Only found a depth of 38 ft. Visibility was variable from <3 ft up to 6-8 ft of vis in other areas. We found lots of tires on this dive. At one point, a school of juvenille fish swam right through me. Seriously. They just appeared from out of nowhere and swarmed me for about 5 seconds or so. It was the coolest! Well not the coolest. Illini and I also saw a lone fresh water jellyfish! That was the coolest!

After our one dive, I broke down the dive gear and spent the rest of the day playing the Oklahoma tourist. I took a real tour of Tucker Tower. I now understand what it is and how it came to be (slimy politicians). I ended up driving over to Turner Falls and investigating briefly. Had a wonderful lunch in Ardmore at InterUrban Cafe. Bumbled over to Sulphur OK and drove around the Chickasaw National Recreation Area. Later y'all. I am tired.

 

[Kunk35]

Okay, not to start off on a sour note, but tent camping in the middle of July has its set of challenges! Holy crap was it hot!! Even with the portable AC in the tent, it was just plain miserable during the day. The nights were great though, even getting a bit chilly...Lake Murray seems to be the local hotspot right now. All the camping/Rv sites were completly full, and we got there early Thursday morning. I never would have thought on a non-holiday weekend there would be so many people out there.

It was great seeing Chucksaul and Donna, IlliniFan, and Richerso. Donna has a very colorful wetsuit! They had some friends of theirs from Rockwall show up to get a couple of dives in with us. It was great hearing about some of their blue water trips.....I'm envious....it was also way cool to see them using their full face masks with communication. I'm sure I will not be investing in that any too soon, but they are pretty cool. With some of the viz we were in during the dives, being able to talk to your dive buddy would end up giving you something to do....I want to say thanks to Tom for diving that last dive with me, and Charles, tell your friends it was good to meet them. Richerso, fill us in on the Tucker Tower story, I've been meaning to get by there and do the tour. Good to see you out with us.

As far as the dives go, they were very enjoyable, typical lake dives. Viz ranged from zero to up to about 8 or 9 feet in spots. Temps on the surface were in the high 80's to a coldest below 40 feet of 74. Other than getting in dive 100 with my wife on our 15th wedding anniversary, (and no, I didn't dive it naked), some of the other highlights are seeing what I think are fresh water shrimp, (I have proof this time cuz I brought one back to show Chucksaul), a couple of very big carp, a large crawdad sitting under a huge rock peeking back at me, and the waaaaayyyyy coolest thing, Tom and I watched a fresh water jelly for a few seconds on our way back on our last dive. Of course, alot of the coolest things we saw was when Rhonda decided to sit out the dive....

Got to give another plug to Scuba J's dive shop. Any time you get out to Murray, go check out his little shop at the marina. He and his wife are good people and they are running a nice little place there. He does lots of rentals and will come out for you at odd hours of the weekend to get you airfills.....(I don't know if he would want me to tell everyone that though)

It's been a really fun tiring weekend, and now I have to go unpack everything.....somebody please come help......

 

[YellowfinKunkfish]

Ditto on all the dives. We had two really nice, long dives on Friday. Nobody else was out there, and the vis was great! Saturday's dive was low vis, didn't see much, but we found a little bitty shrimp looking critter, and a very, very old walnut. (we think) We also found an egg, on one of our dives Friday,about 30-35 feet down. Fully intact! Saw lots of fish all three days, but no turtles! We kept seeing a turtle on the surface, but couldn't find him under the water.

It was great seeing Charley and Donna again, and meeting their friends! Finally got to meet Richerso, and had fun dog sitting Captain! (Illini Fan's dog)

On the camping subject. Let me just say that I am NEVER going camping in July again, until we get an air-conditioned pop-up.

NEVER.

I'm glad we went though, these were some of the nicest dives I've had out at Murray. Very relaxing, and comfortable. And I always love it when I see lots of fish.

Rhonda

 

[chucksaul]

I do believe that where the Kunks go fun will follow... It is always a pleasure to spend time above and below the surface with them... And yes as we pulled into the hotel we did snicker a bit and thank heavens we werent camping...

And now that I have officially broke my diet and had a brownie I can attest to everything that has been said and more about the brownies...

And those of you with kids will appreciate this, those like me with grown kids will grin and those who dont have kids should remember this, but the Little Kunks are some of the politest, helpful and fun kids to be around... Sometimes when you look at your own kids its hard to see how great they are and all of the little Kunks are really wonderful...

Niki and Don had fun and I thinkwe can get them out for some more brown water again...

Thanks again to all who showed and look forward to doing it again soon...

Frank... buddy did you miss out...

 

[texdiveguy]

Thanks ALL for the trip reports.....it was a HOT weekend for sure thing!!

 

[wakegirl]

It was great meeting you guys too!! We weren't very excited about the water, but the other divers made it worthwhile. And since we couldn't see anything we did get to work on our compass navigation. Which I do need work on, I got is back to in the general area where we started except it was in the middle of the lake, I was heading for the opposite shore . It was nice meeting the kunks and its all true about the hot brownies and cookies, they tasted like they came right out of the oven. Dido on the kunk kids!! They were great!