Fri, August 29, 2014 Dives: 1 Bottom Time: 52 minutes Max Depth: 36-40ft/11-12m Avg Viz: 5-10ft/2-3m Weight: 14 Exposure Suit: None Tank Type: AL - 80cf/11L Gas Type: Air Dive Buddy: Chris Painter (chrpai)    Mansfield Dam Dive Park Austin, TX Water Type: Fresh Entry Type: Shore

I met Chris on DiveBuddy and he invited me to dive today. Luck was not on my side while preparing for the dive:

- I couldn’t find my integrated weight pockets for my BC (we recently moved and I’m sure their still packed somewhere).
- My backup BC started leaking.
- My weight belt was too loose (guess I’m loosing weight). I borrowed a weight belt from Chris.
- My dive bag zipper wasn’t working, I need pliers to fix it...which leads to...
- I couldn’t find my pliers.
- None of my dive lights worked (I don’t really use dive lights too often, time for new ones I guess). I borrowed one of Chris’ lights.
- The boat dive we were going to do was canceled so we decided to dive Mansfield Dam at Lake Travis.
- While in the water about to descend, my quick disconnect hose on my dive computer blew and started leaking air fast! Luckily I brought a spare set of regs.

But once we descended, everything was great! We passed some hydrilla close to the shore, the water was pretty murky here...less than 3 feet of viz. At about 20 feet under, the viz cleared up to around 10 feet. We hit a thermocline around 35 feet and cruised along the scuba park near Mansfield Dam. There was a pretty decent slope, with rocks and tree stumps. We saw some small perch and sunfish...along with the occasional stripped bass.

We noticed some white, soft, mushy web like structure covering some of the rocks. It looked like a patterned spider web, but with thicker strands and was very crumbly and soft to the touch.

I found an old style beer can. Chris lost his wedding ring (out of the water, not under the water).

Overall, it was a very pleasant dive and Chris made a wonderful dive buddy.