Pennyroyal Blue Springs Resort in Hopkinsville in southwestern KY. They allow solo diving with solo certification & a liability release form (the SDI form works) & dive plan handed in at the office before the dive.
Their Facebook Page listed these conditions for today:
Water Conditions as of 7/3/2015:
Surface Temp 82, Visibility 10ft.
Thermocline @ 16ft. Temp 67 Visibility 10ft
Visibility below 30 ft opens up 30 to 40ft.
Bottom Temp 43 at 90ft Visibility 35ft.
Dove today to test out my cold tolerance wearing Henderson Thermoprene 5 mm full wetsuit, Aqua Lock 7/5 mm hood & 5 mm gloves & new to the ensemble, a pair of 6 mm SeaSoft Stealth scuba boots. Dove with 12 lbs. weight, 2 4 lbs. in detachable pockets, 2 2 lbs. in rear trim pockets, same weight each side despite having the pony bottle setup on my left as usual when I solo here. 130 cf HP steel tank (one of those Worthingtons you can't get anymore); had a 30 cf pony for redundant air due to soloing.
It was
very cold. The Oceanic VT3 registered a low temp. of 40 degrees. Even the Cobalt 1 said 45 degrees, & it tends to over-shoot low temp.s by about 4 degrees. Perhaps the coldest dive I’ve ever done. I’d guess viz. around 15 feet. I hit around 91 feet max., didn't hurry with that since the cold was initially powerful, ended the dive over the shallow plateau with most of the sunken attractions, & had about 1:06 dive time.
Head, trunk, arms, legs & feet were okay. The new boots did their job. Face was distressingly cold for quite awhile till it numbed up. Both hands stayed uncomfortably cold at depth, worse for the left for reasons unknown. I saw 1 or 2 dead bluegill (at least one at depth) & 3 or 4 dead catfish - one by the old firetruck & 1 by the motorcycle, so a mix of deep & shallow on those. I saw boats, including one with a huge tractor tire upright in it, a blue port-a-potty, a freezer, the white van, the school bus, a number of things. I’m guessing that boat early in the dive toward the start of the picnic tables, not far from the wooden platform I went in via, might’ve been the ‘blue boat,’ though my max. dive depth was 91 feet or so.
Saw some live bluegill, but no catfish or bass.
Richard.
P.S.: I have never travelled to dive colder than 68 degrees & don't plan to this year. Lord willing and providing, I hope to someday boat dive the Channel Islands out of California, & I got spooked reading about people diving dry suits or else using 7 mm wetsuits (& some cutting dives short due to cold). At 6'1" & around 270 - 275 lbs., a big head & hands & size 15 feet, I tend to take my gear with me rather than rent; not the easiest off the rack guy. But I don't want to train for a dry suit or buy a 7 mm wetsuit just for several dives on a one time trip I may never make. So I picked up the 6 mm SeaSoft Stealth boots (since my feet got cold diving Sunrays in the mid.-40s) & they did fine today.
If late summer or fall Channel Islands diving entails fairly warm water at the surface (so I don't freeze when it initially floods the suit), & water in perhaps the mid. 50's (?) at depth, I think this setup would work for me. Quarry diving gets dissed a bit now & then, but it's useful for testing things out.
