Stillhouse this week?

[Timeliner]

Thats a deal Willie !!

 

[texdiveguy]

The 16th. of Dec. is out for me....but Frank/Willie if it were a day later I might head that way to join in. I need the exercise of hauling gear to the point!!!

 

[texdiveguy]

How hard is it going to be to get to 100ft?

Andrew

As I recall Andrew the best place for depth,,,80-100(?)ffw is at the dam end (boat needed)....per scuba shop owner. Alan

 

[Foo]

Hey Willie,
Over Christmas I'd like to head that way and dive Stillhouse on my way down to the coast. ( probably Dec. 16th ~ 23nd week) If my plan works out I'd be going right by there.

Maybe Princess Hemline could join us too. :blinking:

(Oh man... I'm going to get flamed for that :shakehead )

She seems like an awesome person/diver and besides,
it is never a bad idea to have an RN along right !!

Well, I aint no RN... but we might be headed that direction that week, also. I'll let you know and maybe we can catch a dive or two somewhere. Stillhouse sounds good, but is Belton close to Austin, or where?

 

[Willie]

Stillhouse sounds good, but is Belton close to Austin, or where?

Stillhouse Hollow Park is about 2 miles south of US190 which goes to Killeen and then on to Lampasas and further west. It is just north of Salado if you know where that is.

There are two maps on this page.

http://ez.com/diving/Stillhouse/SH-directions.html​

And here is a google map of the larger area. If you zoom in three clicks on the google map you will be looking at the marina.

Willie

 

[Willie]

Awap joined me Wednesday afternoon for a nice dive at Stillhouse. He was the guide and took me to some really cool ruins of an old water plant. There appears to be a very large underground concrete tank still in place. We were diving along and I notice that the bottom had gotten very uniform. He reached down and tapped on it, so I did too and it was very obviously concrete with a very light layer of silt over it.

There were remnants of foundations and a couple of manhole looking openings. Very dark down inside those. It looked like it would be really fun to try and survey and map this site on a day when the vis is better.

Vis was not half what it was yesterday, but it was still a very nice dive. Very cloudy looking most places, I imagine because of the 40-45 mph winds we had most of the day. We dove for 42 minutes to a max depth of 43'. The water was 66 deg on the surface and 65 deg at 43'.

Alan, I walked the doubles to/from the entry point yesterday and today. Not as bad as I had feared.

As I recall Andrew the best place for depth,,,80-100(?)ffw is at the dam end (boat needed)....per scuba shop owner. Alan

If I remember correctly, the shop owner charges $50/hour for the boat (a medium size pontoon boat which we put 6 divers on very easily when I did my AOW) and he takes you to the deeper water. I am not sure if it is possible to just rent the boat for the day or something like that.

Willie

 

[texdiveguy]

Awap joined me Wednesday afternoon for a nice dive at Stillhouse. He was the guide and took me to some really cool ruins of an old water plant. There appears to be a very large underground concrete tank still in place. We were diving along and I notice that the bottom had gotten very uniform. He reached down and tapped on it, so I did too and it was very obviously concrete with a very light layer of silt over it.

There were remnants of foundations and a couple of manhole looking openings. Very dark down inside those. It looked like it would be really fun to try and survey and map this site on a day when the vis is better.

Vis was not half what it was yesterday, but it was still a very nice dive. Very cloudy looking most places, I imagine because of the 40-45 mph winds we had most of the day. We dove for 42 minutes to a max depth of 43'. The water was 66 deg on the surface and 65 deg at 43'.

Alan, I walked the doubles to/from the entry point yesterday and today. Not as bad as I had feared.


If I remember correctly, the shop owner charges $50/hour for the boat (a medium size pontoon boat which we put 6 divers on very easily when I did my AOW) and he takes you to the deeper water. I am not sure if it is possible to just rent the boat for the day or something like that.

Willie

Willie....from that point we dove were is this 'plant' located??

 

[Willie]

We took a heading of about 140, I believe. Since he was leading I didnt pay that much attention going out. I could retrace the route we used coming back, but that was not the most direct route. I'll defer to awap for more specific directions.

Willie

 

[redacted]

We took a heading of about 140, I believe. Since he was leading I didnt pay that much attention going out. I could retrace the route we used coming back, but that was not the most direct route. I'll defer to awap for more specific directions.

Willie

I did a sloppy 130 and came in a bit to the north of the complex. That is the first I tried that course and a 135 would probably work better. Another course that I have done a couple times is from the large sunken boat go 105. That should take you right to the foundation of of the larger building. Key is to error to the north as you come in from the west. If you miss the complex, you will arrive at a steeper dropoff or go below 40 ft. If that happens, turn south and stay at 38 to 40 ft and you should hit it.

 

[texdiveguy]

I did a sloppy 130 and came in a bit to the north of the complex. That is the first I tried that course and a 135 would probably work better. Another course that I have done a couple times is from the large sunken boat go 105. That should take you right to the foundation of of the larger building. Key is to error to the north as you come in from the west. If you miss the complex, you will arrive at a steeper dropoff or go below 40 ft. If that happens, turn south and stay at 38 to 40 ft and you should hit it.

Thanks for the directions.