Dive 239 - Father's Day In The Lake

Father's Day started off nicely meeting a few fathers and not-yet-fathers at Union loake for a serious dive. The plan: We split into two groups. Group A with scooters heads out 18 minutes before those of us without and scouts a new location and picks up some other items previously placed, to move the scuba tank boat (memorably named because it has a scuba tank on the bow) to a new location farther out on the line, planned to be in 50-60 feet of water. Group B by fins enters 18 minutes after, kicks to the Scuba Tank Boat (STB) and awaits Group A's return.

It was rather hot out so we got in our gear and decided to just hang in the water until it was time to go.

We started our dive as scheduled and headed to the STB and awaited Group A.

Visibility wasn't all that great with quite a bit of particulate in the water.

On the way to the STB, we saw this interesting pattern in the lake bed:

While it looks like an underwater alien crop circle, it is caused by crayfish skittering along the bottom - which they do backwards and rather quickly. Interesting to see such a large pattern.

Then we arrived at the STB:

We had a while to wait so we swam around a bit then did an ascent practice to conserve breathing gas consumption as we waited for them. In very simple terms, the shallower you are, the less pressure there is and as a result you use less gas with every breath you take from your tanks.

Group A then arrived and we got to the process of trying to lift the boat. Unfortunately we only had one 500 lb lift bag and the boat did not want to cooperate.

While it started to move a smidge when the bag was inflated, it wasn't enough to break suction from the mud and get it going. After trying for a bit we called it and headed back.

Considering the amount of time spent at depth, Group A had to do some mandatory deco stops and we stayed along with them doing the same. Group A had brought along deco bottles (Aluminum 40 cubic foot tanks) filled with 100% O2. I switched to my deco bottle of 50/50 (50% oxygen, 50% everything else, mainly nitrogen) along with them to both use it up as its time for it to be visually inspected, and to just get a theoretically more effective series of safety stops rather than just using air after such a long working dive. We did a stop at 20 feet for 5 minutes and a stop at 10 for five minutes follow by a slow ascent to 5 feet and after hanging around at five feet for a minute or two, to the surface. Then we got out of the water and headed to the local watering hole to chat and enjoy the rest of the morning.

Bottom temp was in the mid 50s, my dive time was 78 minutes, max depth 47 feet.

Next on the agenda some family time and some good steaks to be grilled for a fine Father's Day dinner.

Happy Father's Day!