Voodoo Reef
Registered
I was organizing a little family lake outing, so figured I'd try somewhere that the non divers could enjoy and I could dive somewhere new.
Matt mentioned possibly doing the next Swamper camp out at Pace Bend/Paleface, so I figured it was as good as any other place.
We drove around for about an hour scouting out places that would be suitable for bbqing, swimming, & diving. The West side of the park was mostly sheer cliff type terrain, so we headed to the more populated side. We settled on Giles cove.
The cove itself is pretty small (60wide x 120long x 30ish ft deep), but it's right next to the cliffs that everyone dives off.
Getting in, the vis was horrible down to about 20ft, where it opened up to about 3 or 4ft. We bumped around the bottom of the cove, then turned the corner and moved along the cliff face.
While it is pretty much a sheer face above the water, it's simply a decently sharp drop off under water (similar to WPP). From the water line, down to about 25ft it's rocky with several fallen trees sprinkled about. 30ft down the bottom is just mud and a few beer cans. On the way out, we cruised along at 25ft looking at the rocks, fallen trees (a few of them were pretty large 2ft diameter), beer cans/bottles, found a mushroom anchor, & 50g barrel. On the way back we hit 50ft and mucked through the mud for a while. Below 30ft there was no ambient light at all and the vis dropped to 1-2ft. After about 20min of playing in the mud, it was time to surface.
The vis was restrictive enough, that I didn't even bother taking any underwater pics.
Couple things to note. This is a pretty active area of the lake, so there were lots of boats tossing up wakes, which in turn stirrs up plenty of silt. It also necessitated us towing a dive float/flag. Our friends on the surface said that while we were towing the float around, no boats came close and none of the cliff divers/swimmers messed with it.
All in all, it was a good day at the lake and a fun dive. Perfect swamp conditions.
Matt mentioned possibly doing the next Swamper camp out at Pace Bend/Paleface, so I figured it was as good as any other place.
We drove around for about an hour scouting out places that would be suitable for bbqing, swimming, & diving. The West side of the park was mostly sheer cliff type terrain, so we headed to the more populated side. We settled on Giles cove.
The cove itself is pretty small (60wide x 120long x 30ish ft deep), but it's right next to the cliffs that everyone dives off.
Getting in, the vis was horrible down to about 20ft, where it opened up to about 3 or 4ft. We bumped around the bottom of the cove, then turned the corner and moved along the cliff face.
While it is pretty much a sheer face above the water, it's simply a decently sharp drop off under water (similar to WPP). From the water line, down to about 25ft it's rocky with several fallen trees sprinkled about. 30ft down the bottom is just mud and a few beer cans. On the way out, we cruised along at 25ft looking at the rocks, fallen trees (a few of them were pretty large 2ft diameter), beer cans/bottles, found a mushroom anchor, & 50g barrel. On the way back we hit 50ft and mucked through the mud for a while. Below 30ft there was no ambient light at all and the vis dropped to 1-2ft. After about 20min of playing in the mud, it was time to surface.
The vis was restrictive enough, that I didn't even bother taking any underwater pics.
Couple things to note. This is a pretty active area of the lake, so there were lots of boats tossing up wakes, which in turn stirrs up plenty of silt. It also necessitated us towing a dive float/flag. Our friends on the surface said that while we were towing the float around, no boats came close and none of the cliff divers/swimmers messed with it.
All in all, it was a good day at the lake and a fun dive. Perfect swamp conditions.
