We added another 300 feet of line today. We are up to 100 foot in depth. We took the scooters to get to the end of the line. Took about 11 min to go from surface to end of line. Definently the way to go. At the end of the line we realed back to the branch that Fixxer found on our way back on our last dive. The branch just crumbled in our hands. The good part was that it was connected to a big so we rewraped to it. Added line back out in a Westerly direction. Not many tie offs out there. Did more searching for good tie offs than adding line. The area is fairly flat. Did not see any rocks. Found a couple more trees to tie off to. At turn time I just stuch the reel in the mud and left it. Fixxer thinks the real is going to have a complex -- it is the third time I have left that it in the mud.
The Great Travis Traverse
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FIXXERVI6
Contributor
Well lets see, right off I forgot my socks because someone was rushing me to get going early so when I started gearing up I had 1 sock, I usually wear 4, makes my feet toasty, keeps me trimmed, makes everything fit right, I had one, so I had to decide which foot was gonna freeze and which was going to be cold.
Instead of making that choice I had a change of pace and duct taped my underwear around my feet and went free-ball mode, it actually did a pretty descent job keeping my foot warm.
I've lost some weight so I pile on the trigger to get down the line and my neck seal peels and scoops up water like a high speed intake, ah the chill of 53 degree water, I thought about it for a second and realized its warm up on deco so I'll be fine. Got to the stake that was staged on the line and decided to skip it, I was still in a little shock from my hands crossing the thermocline and the nice cool water running from my neck to my feet.
On the way out I noticed the line was covered in crap already, that quick! and vis was about half as good, 5 feet or so. The cold water rushing over my hands turned them to ice digits rather quick and of course added more water to the suit, but I was ok cause deco was gonna be warm so keep the trigger down.
Caught up with Trimix1050, he was at the super awsome tie off I found on the log, I used my hand to reach out and shake it to show him just how secure it was when it just came apart... awsome. We followed the log and it turned out to be attached to a MASSIVE tree so I felt better. I got the stake that we had left there and started to head back out to the channel, my finger tips were numb and I was adjusting to the 53 degree water in my suit so I felt better.
Went out a ways and sunk that puppy and wrapped the line, I figure two more and that thing will be solid as a rock.
Turned around to go catch back up to Trimix who was laying line at that time, the idea being I sink the stake, catch up to him and scout tie offs to the side then tow him back to the scooter when we hit time/gas/out of line. When I turned around my scooter lanyard snapped - cool I can fix this (mask light is the best thing slice bread). I tried to re tie a taugnt line hitch and realized my numb fingers were not going to help me out much and I was sitting pretty deep so I just grandma knotted that sucker, no coming off, hit the trigger and thats when I realized I tied it up real good without putting my clip on the lanyard.
I tried to untie the granny but it wasn't happening so I just threw a girth hitch on the bolt snap - which doesn't allow the lanyard to slide at all - which left my scooter pointing nose down (yes I did eventually fix it, pita).
Anyway caught up to Kurt and started scouting tie offs.. nothing, perfectly flat plane on an uphill inlcine featureless as can be, we pushed on.
Then a small group of trees, good tie off and then swimming on, eventually we hit time, the reel is just sunk in the mud right now, its been spending most of its time in the mud I'm sure it hates me, its got mud stains.
A good section of the line is just laying on top of the silt then comes back up after a while, there was nothing there to keep it off the ground, no rocks, anything, so to follow it out we'll have to gently lift it up and follow it that way until we can get out there with some kind of device that will lift it over the silt and keep it up.
I'm so glad the water was warm up shallow! gotta love the tingle on deco, at least I didn't blow my catheter.
Instead of making that choice I had a change of pace and duct taped my underwear around my feet and went free-ball mode, it actually did a pretty descent job keeping my foot warm.
I've lost some weight so I pile on the trigger to get down the line and my neck seal peels and scoops up water like a high speed intake, ah the chill of 53 degree water, I thought about it for a second and realized its warm up on deco so I'll be fine. Got to the stake that was staged on the line and decided to skip it, I was still in a little shock from my hands crossing the thermocline and the nice cool water running from my neck to my feet.
On the way out I noticed the line was covered in crap already, that quick! and vis was about half as good, 5 feet or so. The cold water rushing over my hands turned them to ice digits rather quick and of course added more water to the suit, but I was ok cause deco was gonna be warm so keep the trigger down.
Caught up with Trimix1050, he was at the super awsome tie off I found on the log, I used my hand to reach out and shake it to show him just how secure it was when it just came apart... awsome. We followed the log and it turned out to be attached to a MASSIVE tree so I felt better. I got the stake that we had left there and started to head back out to the channel, my finger tips were numb and I was adjusting to the 53 degree water in my suit so I felt better.
Went out a ways and sunk that puppy and wrapped the line, I figure two more and that thing will be solid as a rock.
Turned around to go catch back up to Trimix who was laying line at that time, the idea being I sink the stake, catch up to him and scout tie offs to the side then tow him back to the scooter when we hit time/gas/out of line. When I turned around my scooter lanyard snapped - cool I can fix this (mask light is the best thing slice bread). I tried to re tie a taugnt line hitch and realized my numb fingers were not going to help me out much and I was sitting pretty deep so I just grandma knotted that sucker, no coming off, hit the trigger and thats when I realized I tied it up real good without putting my clip on the lanyard.
I tried to untie the granny but it wasn't happening so I just threw a girth hitch on the bolt snap - which doesn't allow the lanyard to slide at all - which left my scooter pointing nose down (yes I did eventually fix it, pita).
Anyway caught up to Kurt and started scouting tie offs.. nothing, perfectly flat plane on an uphill inlcine featureless as can be, we pushed on.
Then a small group of trees, good tie off and then swimming on, eventually we hit time, the reel is just sunk in the mud right now, its been spending most of its time in the mud I'm sure it hates me, its got mud stains.
A good section of the line is just laying on top of the silt then comes back up after a while, there was nothing there to keep it off the ground, no rocks, anything, so to follow it out we'll have to gently lift it up and follow it that way until we can get out there with some kind of device that will lift it over the silt and keep it up.
I'm so glad the water was warm up shallow! gotta love the tingle on deco, at least I didn't blow my catheter.
FIXXERVI6
Contributor
oh on the profile I posted, if you just remove the dip in the 15 to 20 minute section you can "see" what the slope up the other side looks like, Kurts profile would do a much better job illustrating this.
FIXXERVI6
Contributor
Only seems better if you combine it like, because its there and we can
maybe a good sig line?
An update, I'm down for the count with the worst ear infection I've ever had in my life right now, outer, middle, and sinus all at the same time. I kept hoping all last night my ear drum would rupture to releive some pain but it didn't, switching to coedine this morning.
Hope you get to feeling better son....WE need to talk. *Found the info. was going to ask after all. Alan
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FIXXERVI6
Contributor
ianr33
Contributor
Did a dive Saturday evening (9-11) with Zinc to add some stakes that will hold the line above the silt.Not sure how many we actually put in. Was quite amusing as we would swim along the line aways, stop and put a stake in only to find the next one all of 10 feet further on. Oh well.............
Got as far as the big tree that Fixxer found.It looks really strange in the middle of nowhere.
On the return leg we made an attempt to straighten out the Zig at the start of the line. Afraid we may have left it a bit of a mess though as a silt cloud and rapidly increasing deco made an expedient exit rather attractive at that point. We intend to tidy up this up soon,but in the meantime anyone diving this should be aware there may be a bunch of loose line floating around.
Max depth was 160 (lake at 672) The tree was at around 136. Depths on attached profile are shallow by about 7 feet. (Blame my Sensus)
Thanks again to Cavemn for acting as support.
Got as far as the big tree that Fixxer found.It looks really strange in the middle of nowhere.
On the return leg we made an attempt to straighten out the Zig at the start of the line. Afraid we may have left it a bit of a mess though as a silt cloud and rapidly increasing deco made an expedient exit rather attractive at that point. We intend to tidy up this up soon,but in the meantime anyone diving this should be aware there may be a bunch of loose line floating around.
Max depth was 160 (lake at 672) The tree was at around 136. Depths on attached profile are shallow by about 7 feet. (Blame my Sensus)
Thanks again to Cavemn for acting as support.
Attachments
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Ditto, very fun dive indeed.
Visibility on the way down was mostly poor, but down deep it's quite nice, 8-12 feet. 5 stakes were added at irregular intervals and one dropped at the tree log tie-off.
The fallen tree that FixxerVI6 and Trimix1050 tied off on the far side is really cool... I got a good look as visibility was great. Lying on it's side the tree is quite big with large trunk and limbs w/ foot long strands of silt/matter/stuff hanging all over from decades submersion. Nice spot to turn... w/out scooters it's a long swim across
Didn't follow the new line beyond, but did leave one stake at the log tie off for the next push forward, in case it's slim pickins out there.
As Ianr33 said, during the zig-zag repair, we silted up pretty bad w/ loose line in the cloud and the deco clock ticking
so the abort was necessary. A shorter return dive to clean that up is in order and we will try and knock that out soon, but be aware there's probably 16-20' that is loose and needs to be removed.
Thanks again to Cavemn for the support!
Visibility on the way down was mostly poor, but down deep it's quite nice, 8-12 feet. 5 stakes were added at irregular intervals and one dropped at the tree log tie-off.
The fallen tree that FixxerVI6 and Trimix1050 tied off on the far side is really cool... I got a good look as visibility was great. Lying on it's side the tree is quite big with large trunk and limbs w/ foot long strands of silt/matter/stuff hanging all over from decades submersion. Nice spot to turn... w/out scooters it's a long swim across
Didn't follow the new line beyond, but did leave one stake at the log tie off for the next push forward, in case it's slim pickins out there.
As Ianr33 said, during the zig-zag repair, we silted up pretty bad w/ loose line in the cloud and the deco clock ticking
so the abort was necessary. A shorter return dive to clean that up is in order and we will try and knock that out soon, but be aware there's probably 16-20' that is loose and needs to be removed.Thanks again to Cavemn for the support!
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