I FINALLY collected on the boat dive with the Scubateers last Saturday. Mike Giboney (Rudebob) was my dive buddy. To be honest I took way to long to schedule this dive, not to mention that I had to cancel a couple of times as well. I was a little worried that I had worn out my welcome even before I boarded the boat. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ll gush later.
The good ship Scubateers II is crewed by Rob Brown (Captain), Karen Munks and Aaron Buelow, both instructors. Also on the boat that day was Chris (sorry, didn’t get your last name) doing his Deep Dive specialty and another Steve visiting from Alaska. I didn’t get AK Steve’s last name either.
I met Aaron at the dock next to the 10-lane boat ramp before the boat arrived. He has a contagious excitement about diving and especially diving off Scubateers II on Lake Pleasant. Any concerns I had about wearing out my welcome pretty much evaporated right then. I knew I was going to have a great time.
Scubateers II docked right on time and after meeting Rob and Karen we loaded our gear and picked our spots for the day. We had only 7 people onboard, including the crew, so we had plenty of room. We started setting up our gear while still at the dock so by the time we were underway all I had to do was listen to Karen’s dive briefing.
Our first “port of call” was Tech Island. So called because of the deep diving and the large horizontal crevices and fissures that are sure to pique any Caver’s interest. Not being the shy types, Mike and I were the first ones into the pool. We descended along the anchor line to about 20 feet and took a heading of 180 degrees. We estimated the vis to be at about 35 feet. Awesome! That’s the depth where we could still see the bottom of Scubateers II.
After several minutes we turned to the east (hung a left at a largish tree) and dropped down another tier, exploring as we went. There were a lot of nooks and crannies to shine our lights into. Sometimes our lights would find a wall way back there. Sometimes they didn’t. By now we had descended to about 50 feet and the next tier dropped into nothingness. Mike and I looked at each other, did a pressure check and down we went.
This was a great wall. We followed it down to 107 feet where we came to a small ledge. It went deeper but we were happy to poke around where we were. We swam back north along the ledge and came across a deep horizontal fissure. Neither Mike or I have the gear or training to enter something like that so we had to be satisfied with lighting up the sides of the fissure as far back as our lights could go while we hovered at the entrance. After several minutes at depth we agreed to ascend along the wall to 50 feet for a deep stop. After three minutes we continued our ascent. Since I wasn’t familiar with this dive site I wanted to find the anchor with 1/3 of my starting pressure plus 500 psi. We did and hung out exploring at 15 to 20 feet around the line until we had to surface.
During our surface interval we talked about some of the dive sites the Scubateers have found. Rob has the equivalent of a “little black book” containing GPS coordinates and notes about sites they have scouted over time. I was reminded of the ship’s captains of old who added special routes and stops to their charts making then a valuable commodity.
Our next stop was Scubateer Island. The underwater topography there is very cool. There’s rocky and then there’s ROCKY; and this site has both. Aaron dropped the anchor and Karen pointed out a reef buoy at about 150 degrees off the bow. She said if we swam toward the buoy we would find a swim-through. We did and we did. At about 65 feet. Nature had arranged some boulders so that you could swim through a space between two of them while another large flat rock created a capstone of sorts. Looked like it was made for divers’ entertainment pleasure. The large school of fish (bass or stripers?) swimming overhead completed the picture.
Before we arrived at the swim-through we explored under and around some really big overhangs. We couldn’t get enough of it. There were underwater trees and vegetation from when they filled the lake after building the new dam. On the other side of the swim-through we emerged to find a rock wall to our right and more depth to our left. We opted for the wall. We maintained our depth swimming parallel to the wall for 30 or 40 feet before turning back toward the swim-through. This time we swam around it just for grins. I was navigating for us and thought I was returning parallel to our outbound course but about 20 feet deeper. We followed the bottom contour and things started to look familiar. I was feeling pretty good about my superior navigation skills; until the bottom dropped unexpectedly away. Hmm. We swam back the way we came and I was beginning to feel a little lost. If I was a Scubatees II, where would I be? Finally I stopped to take a good look around. Mike looked quizzically at me and I shrugged my shoulders. Mike must have realized what I meant. He pointed over his shoulder and up. There the bottom of the boat was. Right where we left it.
Now the gushing part.
The Scubateers is a class operation no matter how you look at it. Rob, Karen and Aaron are great hosts. They took great care of us through out the entire day. And it will be even better when they move to their new boat the Scubateers III (catchy name). Check out their boat dive specials and info on their new dive boat on the “Trips and Local Market Place” thread. Dives in December are $35.00 for 2 dives BYOT (bring your own tanks). After the first of the year the price goes up to $45.00 for 2 dives BYOT/$55 if they supply the tanks and weights.
I want to thank Rob, Karen and Aaron again for a fun dive day. I’m looking forward to joining you guys again some time soon.
Steve.
