We were thinking it was going to be cold on the trip, but as soon as the sun broke through the lake fog, it was very nice on deck. This is the first time I used a 7/5 full wetsuit and it was great for most of the weekend. The surface water was 72 with the first major change at about 42 feet. That one was chilly, but alright once you got used to the difference.
Jill and I took two dives on Sat morning and two more in the afternoon. On Sun morning we went out to find a boat that is supposed to be submerged at about 20 feet just west of where we anchored. We went 1/3 air out and went down a shelf on the way back without finding the boat. Charts would help I`m sure. She didn`t want to dive again and I still had about 1400lbs, so I went out with the o/w course guys and buddied up for some exercises. Good thing too cause this was the first time I`d been in a 7/5 suit with a weight integrated bc... Was an interesting thought having to hold onto my bc to keep from coming up. That would have been embarassing, but a good lesson learned. Then I lead the group of 5 students down to the first thermocline, stopping at about 43 feet to let them feel the change.
They all left when we docked at lunch, but I filled my tanks and met up with Robert, a buddy who lives in Fayetteville. We went over to the north dam site and dived the underwater forest. I got quite chilled at 62 feet so we came up to about 40 and traversed along the bluff edge for a while. Then we moved over across to the north dam park. Figured if I was going to try cold we needed to do it off the bat. So we went down and found this odd concrete duck (or something). It had a rope attached, so we followed that to another concrete block. Then we headed deep. 40 was chilly, 50 was quite chilly, 60 was pretty cold, 70 was really cold, and 75 was bloody cold. Stayed there just long enough to play with a small flashlight. It was amazing how bright the thing was at that depth. So we came up to 50 and warmed up and rested a bit, then just followed the slope back upto the swimming area.
We finished off air just looking for treasures under the swimming area. Found nothing other than a crawdad that a bass found to be quite tasty.
Didn`t have a camera with me, still trying to decide what to get. The forest was pretty nice for photos, and around the north dam site the clarity was pretty good. Had a sediment cloud between about 45 and 50 feet, but everywhere else was pretty clear.
Was a good trip, and wound up getting 9 dives over the weekend, 6 boat and 3 shore entry.