Scuba Park Lake Travis - Austin, TX
Sat-Sun; June 26-28, 1999

I did my cert dives in beautiful Lake Travis in Austin, Texas. This was a BLAST. It was a first-hand experience of the finest in Texas Mud Diving. After this, I will be able to dive in Tapioca. My next dive will probably be like diving in BOTTLED WATER after this experience with Texas Lakes.

Dives 1-4 were open water certification dives under the supervision of the instructor. Water conditions were murky at best, which contributed to my very inelegant first dive (full story below). Fish included large catfish (due hand feeding of hot dogs by students), carp, and perch. Many sunken things to seek out and explore, i.e. boats, bathtubs, platforms.

Okay, to say that my first dive was inelegant would be way too kind! On my absolutely first descent into the murky waters of Lake Travis, my mind was saying "Going Down!" while my flailing arms and legs were saying "Definitely Going Up!" This argument between mind and body left me hovering at about 11 feet looking like some ghastly apparition in the throes of death doing a strange parody of the Pee Wee Herman dance. Really not my finest moment! The deciding vote in the "up or down?" argument was finally cast when the instructor, Karen Burrows, reached up, grabbed one of my fins, and pulled me downward. Then rest of dive one was simply an exercise in acclimating my senses to an underwater world where sound, direction, and sight past 5 feet were nonexistent, creatures and terrain were vastly different, and I was dependent upon life support and clear-headedness.

The next 3 dives went much smoother (not counting the few moments of dive 3, when I was swarmed by a gazillion fish because I had hot dogs in my BC pocket!). The repetition and skills practice gave me a sense of confidence in this exciting new world. With the end of the 4th dive I was OW certified. And had license to venture out unsupervised...which I did!

Dive 5, two newbies, myself and Greg Cole, do a textbook dive. We go through the predive prep, plan the dive and dive our plan. One small detail, our plan sucked!! We decided to go to other side of the buoyed off compound then turn around and come back. However, diving in murky water gave us no reference and although we were on course we had no clues from underwater where the buoys were!

The dive went something like this. We agreed on a compass heading with my buddy leading, I was watching the computer to keep track of time and depth. We were great buddies and hung together, communicated well, stayed at the correct depth, checked our gauges and each other often. We finally surfaced after 15 minutes because I was getting cold and tired only to find out that we were way past the safe diving area and were in the boat lane with drunken college kids manning Sea Doos and speed boats. We take another bearing on the compass and down we go again. However, some common sense kicks in just prior to descent and I say "down to 20 feet for 5 minutes and ascend for a visual check." And thank heavens I made that plan. We set the compass looking at the dock but since we were head back we added the 180 degrees and promptly swam further into the lake!! Next time on the surfaced we opted for a lengthy surface swim back to dock.

What an adventure! But I learned a few lessons that will serve me well in years to come...

• Two newbies does not a good team make!
• Distance underwater is deceptive, when in doubt use counting kick cycles instead of a set time out and back.
• Be aware of subtle clues (i.e. seas floor falling away, temperature or terrain changes) to help with navigation.
• Don't panic when mishaps occur - stop, breathe, think, act!
• Take ample supplies for all contingencies. (my alert sausage was in my gear bag 'cause we were diving in a safe area!)

All in all, I had a fabulous time and only expect diving to get better with each dive!

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