BigBubbaJ
Contributor
So Winterhawk(Tino) and I dove Wellington Lake today.
We spoke with the groundskeeper, who directed us to the area near the dam, which he said would offer the most depth at the lake, he estimated we could reach 50' there. He also said that they were not taking water in nor letting water out, which I wasn't really sure was good nor bad.
We found a picnic area and set up camp.
Got set up, proceeded into the water.
I dropped 2 lb of weight, so wanted to to a buoyancy check. No problem getting under, but heard the dreaded bubbling.
Problems maintaining surface buoyancy. I immediately noticed that my BC was leaking. Crap!
Regulator still in mouth, swam to a rock near the shore where I realized that while taking off my inflator hose for cleaning was great for maintenance, tightening up the valve screw where the inflator connects to my BC beyond a single thread or two was critical for diving. Noted! Got that fixed, and confirmed no more leaks.
We dropped down an followed the bottom countour hoping that the 1-2 foot visibility would open up.
When the visibility opened up to 3-5 feet, it seems that was the shape of the dive to come.
I was expecting the depth to get deeper up to about 50ft, so when I had too many kick cycles stuck at about 30 ft, I signaled that I was lost so we surfaced and got a bearing. I was a few degrees off on my compass heading... doh! we did a bit of a surface swim, expecting the vis to suck still, and then descended again.
We found the bottom again at 30ft, but I saw some promising bottom contours, and followed them in the general direction of my ideal compass heading and eventually we found a section that sloped down! Whoohoo!
After a bit of following the bottom in about 2ft of vis, I was very chilly, and diving in a 7mm found myself on the the brink or freezing. Checked my gauges and at 35ft, the temp was down to about 54, and by 40 ft the temp was about 50! COLD!. Side note: I find my PP2 to be about 4 degrees higher than all other computers...
So a "Im freaking cold" signal turned both of us around to find the warmer water (61) above the thermocline, which was nice.
We got thouroghly lost again, but found the bottom contour that led us back to where we started, and proceeded to find some interesting stuff.
We found a really cool chunk of driftwood (sunken) and then found a really intreresting rock formation, then found a neat tree stump which seemed bizzare.
Didn't see a single fish.
Used our compass heading to the shore which landed us right back to the dive start site. We both surfaced with about 1100 psi, but agreed we had enough.
All in all... a 41 minute murky dive in freezing water.... not a highlight dive, but fun nonetheless. It all got better when the burgers finished cooking and we got some food. I downloaded my dive date into Scubase, and found this to be my best air consumption dive ever, so I suppose being lost in murky water and not focusing on breathing made that part of the dive a highlight.
So were we diving in the wrong spot or was this pretty typical for a wellington lake dive?
Cheers!
-BigBubbaJ
We spoke with the groundskeeper, who directed us to the area near the dam, which he said would offer the most depth at the lake, he estimated we could reach 50' there. He also said that they were not taking water in nor letting water out, which I wasn't really sure was good nor bad.
We found a picnic area and set up camp.
Got set up, proceeded into the water.
I dropped 2 lb of weight, so wanted to to a buoyancy check. No problem getting under, but heard the dreaded bubbling.
Problems maintaining surface buoyancy. I immediately noticed that my BC was leaking. Crap!
Regulator still in mouth, swam to a rock near the shore where I realized that while taking off my inflator hose for cleaning was great for maintenance, tightening up the valve screw where the inflator connects to my BC beyond a single thread or two was critical for diving. Noted! Got that fixed, and confirmed no more leaks.
We dropped down an followed the bottom countour hoping that the 1-2 foot visibility would open up.
When the visibility opened up to 3-5 feet, it seems that was the shape of the dive to come.
I was expecting the depth to get deeper up to about 50ft, so when I had too many kick cycles stuck at about 30 ft, I signaled that I was lost so we surfaced and got a bearing. I was a few degrees off on my compass heading... doh! we did a bit of a surface swim, expecting the vis to suck still, and then descended again.
We found the bottom again at 30ft, but I saw some promising bottom contours, and followed them in the general direction of my ideal compass heading and eventually we found a section that sloped down! Whoohoo!
After a bit of following the bottom in about 2ft of vis, I was very chilly, and diving in a 7mm found myself on the the brink or freezing. Checked my gauges and at 35ft, the temp was down to about 54, and by 40 ft the temp was about 50! COLD!. Side note: I find my PP2 to be about 4 degrees higher than all other computers...
So a "Im freaking cold" signal turned both of us around to find the warmer water (61) above the thermocline, which was nice.
We got thouroghly lost again, but found the bottom contour that led us back to where we started, and proceeded to find some interesting stuff.
We found a really cool chunk of driftwood (sunken) and then found a really intreresting rock formation, then found a neat tree stump which seemed bizzare.
Didn't see a single fish.
Used our compass heading to the shore which landed us right back to the dive start site. We both surfaced with about 1100 psi, but agreed we had enough.
All in all... a 41 minute murky dive in freezing water.... not a highlight dive, but fun nonetheless. It all got better when the burgers finished cooking and we got some food. I downloaded my dive date into Scubase, and found this to be my best air consumption dive ever, so I suppose being lost in murky water and not focusing on breathing made that part of the dive a highlight.
So were we diving in the wrong spot or was this pretty typical for a wellington lake dive?
Cheers!
-BigBubbaJ
