TS /Hurricane Dolly
- Thread starter Mack Diver
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You live in Texas have 500+ dives and have never dove Fresh Water (you have been missing out!!)....I thought it worked the other way around.
If I lived on SPI, I would probably have a different ratio of fresh to salt myself, for the cost of a drive to most fresh water he can just go out with American and dive salt.
Yeah, I have been fortunate. Trained and worked in Roatan to start off and then have worked worked at AD and a small stint in Key West. Even lived in Austin for 2 years and never even considered diving Travis. (yes, I was being a salt water snob). Hopefully after tomorrow I'll be on my way to earning my DIMWIT card though. 
From what I've read those trenches carved by the currents were primarily responsible for the Grove being righted and the storm surge was just the final push over the top.
Hurricane Dennis righted the Grove but really was not very close. The surge in Key Largo was not that much.
The intended orientation for the Clipper placed here parallel to projected surge and currents so that, assuming she went down correctly, there would be less chance of her being knocked on her side. Of course, that cuts both ways so there is less chance of her being righted.
Maybe you can talk K-valve out of a DIMWIT t if someone hasn't paid yetYeah, I have been fortunate. Trained and worked in Roatan to start off and then have worked worked at AD and a small stint in Key West. Even lived in Austin for 2 years and never even considered diving Travis. (yes, I was being a salt water snob). Hopefully after tomorrow I'll be on my way to earning my DIMWIT card though.
I wish I could afford to be a salt water snob, but diving lots means diving local and for me that is travis and other Texas mudholes with occasional trips to see blue water, but I like to think that the muck makes me appreciate the blue water all the more when I do get there.
Wish I could join you guys, but I don't think I will get a morning off this week, at least not b4 Friday.
You guys have fun out there and let us know how it was.
Well, now I know why we are called "Swamp Divers". Quite a bit different than diving the salt, but all in all, I would say it was a pretty good day of diving. We met up at Mansfield Dam Park around 11. After some idle chit chat about gear configuration we descended the stairs to the dive park and we were off. The map at the top of the stairs told me that there was a plane sunk in the park and k-valve did not disappoint in leading me to it. I was a little bit lost being led on a dive since I am used to being the one doing the leading. However, once I got accustomed to not being able to see anything, I think I did fine. Honestly, the whole first half of the dive, all I saw was k-valve's black OMS fins as I did my best to not get lost.
The water temp wasn't too bad. We made one trip down to 90' where we ran smack dab into a wall of 60 degree water. K-valve immediately gave the signal to turn around and I did not put up a fight. We ran into a couple of sail boats and a cool memorial to a diver from Pisces Divers. As we made the turn from the memorial k-valve looked right I looked left and when we turned back around we both found ourselves without a dive buddy. I wasn't too surprised that we lost each other, I was actually surprised that we maintained contact for as long as we did. The nice thing about diving Travis vs. the Gulf is that you can easily find your way back to shore by following the sloping bottom back to the surface. In the Gulf if you get separated or blown off of a wreck you would have to do a free ascent in the open ocean, never a fun prospect. Anyway, I figured we could both find our ways back to shore, so I finished up my dive, found one more sunken boat and lots of mud and rocks and right as I finished up my safety stop, a tug at my fin let me know that my buddy had returned, right on schedule.
For dive two we crossed the parking lot to the swim cove and dropped in to 5' of visibility. I was on the downward slope and k-valve on the upward slope. Now, before I came up to Austin, I was told of grottos in the depths of Lake Travis. The only other time I have heard of a grotto was the one at Hugh Hefner's house and I took a boat into one on a trip to Italy once. So the thought of encountering a grotto in Lake Travis was very intriguing to me. As I was swimming along next to k-valve to start the dive on the downward slope of the cove, all I could think of were the mysterious grottos lurking in the depths that must be filled with playboy bunnies and Italian fashion models. When I turned to my new dive buddy to entice him into the depths calling below he was gone. After spending a few minutes waiting a looking for him, I decided to go ahead and finish up my dive. I swam straight down and followed some contours until I came upon my first grotto. Imagine my surprise when I found that it was filled not with playboy bunnies but mud bunnies. Needless to say it didn't quite live up to my expectations, but it was a cool find nonetheless. A little more searching uncovered another sunken boat, some red stripe beer bottles and some more rocks and mud. I did see a nice variey of fish species, however my fresh water fish ID is nil so I couldn't say what all they were. I made my way back to our entry point and found k-valve was actually exiting the water at the same time. We met back up and decided we would have do to it all over again sometime very soon.
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