Report on April fools Letra dive

[fire_diver]

Well, since nobody else piped up to say they would be at lake Elmer Thomas today, I went solo. No biggie, I like solo dives. LETRA is a 2:15 drive from my house. I got there at 12:30 and the air temp was 79. There were 2 sets of OW classes going on, so it was a bit crowded, at least for parking anyway. The lake level was quite nice. It was up about 5 feet from when I dove it last Sept. It made the entry much nicer.

I wore my new Henderson polyolefin skin under my 7mil for the first time. It is supposed to give the warmth of 2mm of neoprene. It's hard to tell for sure, but my core stayed comfortable (more on this later).

The surface temp was about 56, so I decided to leave the gloves in the truck. Upon entry, I found the vis to be about 1-5 feet. This was becuase of all the previous divers. Lots of debris and plants floating about. Every once in a while you could get an area of about 10 feet.

The thermo-cline was about 25feet, and the vis opened up under the layer. The temp dropped to about 45 (IIRC) here. I found this to be nice, since last fall it was reversed. Great vis above, black-out under the layer. Anyway, as I continued heading east towards the damn, the bottom just kept on dropping. I don't remember exactly where, but I crossed another thermal layer. Now the temp was unreal! My face and my hands (exposed, remember?) HURT! It was so cold, it reminded me of putting my hands in a Colorado stream of snow-melt. I know it was in the 30's but don't know the temp exactly. After a couple minutes of slowly going farther down, my face and hands went numb. I was at 65 feet at this point. My body was OK, but the lips and the hands were freaking me out. All I wanted to do was get back to the warm (??? ) 55 degree water.

At the same time my inflator extruded it's O-ring. I un-plugged, and re-plugged it to make sure the problem wasn't with the hose. It wasn't, just the inflator. So I unplugger and went back up to about 25 feet, and warmth felt awesome. I slowly surfaced, and had to manually inflate my BC, then swim back to shore. Thankfully I carry tools and O-rings for such occasions. After my SI, I went back to play around with my second tank. I stayed up above the thermo-cline, in the soup, but it was still a pleasant (and warm) dive.

Overall, it was a nice dive trip. Had better, but I've had worse. Lessons learned: Save-a-dive kits are worth thier weight in gold; lake water can get much colder than I ever thought possible!

I didn't take my camera in the water, due to the vis, but I snapped some surface shots. I hope to get the film explosed tomorrow.

Comrade Stroke

 

[LakeScubaDiver]

I remember the black out conditions under that layer of muck! I guess the vis has opened up deeper you go like a typical lake! That is good to know....now we may venture through that nasty blackness!

 

[fire_diver]

I remember the black out conditions under that layer of muck! I guess the vis has opened up deeper you go like a typical lake! That is good to know....now we may venture through that nasty blackness!

The nasty blackness wasn't there! It was just like TenKiller. Murky up top, getting progressively clearer the further down you got. Although it may have been farther down?

Last year I gave up at about 33. I thought for sure I must be about to run into the bottom. So I was REALLY shocked to look at my computer and see I was at 65 and the bottom kept dropping. So how deep can you get here?

The cold wasn't the only reason I turned back when I did. I was worried about getting into mental "overload." I was at 65 feet with almost no ambiant light. I had my dive light in one hand, my dive flag on a reel in the other. I had skin going numb (a new experience in diving for me). I had an O-ring extrude on my inflator. I un-hooked the inflator, which meant I now had to manually inflate my BC. Last but NOT least, silt-out. I guess decending horizontal down a 45degree muck slope has the potential to be bad.

After I un-hooked my inflator, I locked off my reel. I didn't want to be messing with it right then. I did a 180 to go back up, and saw that my fins had just kicked up a cloud of silt and it was spreading fast. I figure, "no problem, I can just swim up through it". I wound up sticking my light-hand and my face about 1 foot into the silt on the slope (not enough "up" as I went "forward"). So I push back out, drop my reel (it's locked) and use it as and ascent line. Once I got back up to about 25, I pulled up my reel, and rolled in the slack. After completing a 3 minute stop, I surfaced, manually inflated my BC and swam to shore to go fix my leak.

LETRA seems to be my person proving ground. I had a major fubar with my reel last time I was there.

Comrade Stroke

 

[mudhole]

Near the old Elmer Thomas dam there was a flattened area west of the dam at about 75 feet. If you keep going west you will find a slope that takes you to a creek bed slightly wider than you can stretch your arms, at about 90 feet. Follow the winding creek bed toward the west till you find the leg of a metal tower. Early divers on the lake used to swim on the surface to the tower, then down. The top was broken off sometime in the 60's. It's fun to come up with rust on your wetsuit and know the number on the sign, just below where the tower is broken off. It's a mark of accomplishment with the experienced divers at the lake. Very few know the sign. You'll probably have to wait till the water is clear in the late fall or winter. . . and if you see the bottom erupt in front of you, don't worry there are small catfish laying in the silt, and jump when disturbed.

 

[fire_diver]

It's fun to come up with rust on your wetsuit and know the number on the sign, just below where the tower is broken off. It's a mark of accomplishment with the experienced divers at the lake. Very few know the sign.

Ok, now you've given me a goal to shoot for! And here I thought LETRA was just a boring, shallow, BOW check-out spot. I think I may have to go back more often then, and I'll be bringing nitrox in the future.

Thanks for the heads up!

Comrade Stroke

 

[mudhole]

I remember the black out conditions under that layer of muck! I guess the vis has opened up deeper you go like a typical lake! That is good to know....now we may venture through that nasty blackness!

That nasty blackness might be anywhere. . . Years ago, Tenkiller flooded by 30 feet, two years in a row The first year, all the mud and murk was at the surface. A friend dropped a weight belt into about 60 feet, and I was the one to go after it. Sinking down 60 feet, it quickly became black. . . but I didn't have the sensation of particles. I came up with the weightbelt and got a dive light out of my bag. All the flood water had run across the top of the lake water and below 30 feet the lake was clear. Everyone with dive lights enjoyed night diving all day long.

One year later the lake flooded 30 feet, and the mud and debri ran under the lake and lifted the clear water. I took an underwater pic of a diver picking rasberries, from a plant that would later be high above the water.

For more than 30 years I've dove water that was clear, when others came to the lake and dove in murky conditions then went home, only because they think the lake is all the same. Only in the best of times is the lake clear everywhere. Recent heavy rains here in Oklahoma, will leave places near the shore muddy. . . dive spots near the bluffs and out at the islands will be better. Maybe very good. When the rain carried mud spreads out in the lake, water releases from the dam carries the muddiest water along the old river path. . . If you go to the sides of the islands away from the river channel, the visibility will be better.

If you drive across the dam to Tenkiller state park, the bluffs south of the dam are called Crappie Point. As you get close you can see a small cove that can be muddy from rain and runoff. When the timing is right you can see the mud of that cove against the blue surrounding it. . . This localized mud occurs all over the lake, it's just not so easy to recognize.

 

[fire_diver]

That nasty blackness might be anywhere. . . ..

The "blackness" was at Elmer Thomas. And I saw it too. Didn't look like any mud I've ever seen before. Looked more like oil, but it wasn't. It was think, black, and you looked at it and thought "I don't want to touch that stuff, much less go diving in it"

LETRA seems a funny lake. It's prettt small as diving lakes go, the main diving area is even smaller. Last fall was my first trip there. I was all ready to make some dives down to the 90 foot area. I entered the water on the north side, and followed the bottom contour all the way till I surfaced on the south shore. I never got below 32 feet IIRC. I swam back to the deepest point, and went east and it got shallower. I went west and it got shallower. I thought I had been lied to about the depth.

Then, last Sunday, I swim out and bottom just keeps dropping and dropping. Like it decided I was OK to dive there and would let me play.

Strange little lake!

 

[fire_diver]

Near the old Elmer Thomas dam......

OK, help a diver out here. It just dawned on me that there were 2 dams here. What is the relationship of the dams? How far west of the new damn is the old dam? How deep is the top of the old dam?

Now I want to dive LETRA more than ever! SO much to explore that I didn't know about!

Comrade Stroke.

 

[LakeScubaDiver]

My understanding is that there is an old dam sunken parallel to the new existing functional dam we can see....there is a drop off between them and it gets to around 82 feet. This is from the local dive shop guy there in Lawton at Dive Pros...he said it was dark down there and no reason to go....

I remember your story about your line tangling you up last year, Elmer has treated you bad dude! But you seem to be great out getting out of those predicaments!

And that black nasty stuff looked just like an oil slick!!! WEIRD

 

[fire_diver]

I'm telling you, that late is enchanted. You can only do what it lets you do. I swam around alot, and never found anything deeper than 33 last year. The only place I didn't go was right at the (new) dam. I swear I was diving in the same place this year as last, and it was a whole different lake.

For some reason I'm reminded of the old Indian women I met many years ago in NM. Very wierd encounter. Don't know why it reminds me of that, but that's a different story. Damn, now I'm gonna have trouble sleeping with that encounter running through my head. :shakehead

Comrade Stroke