H2Ozarks, a non-profit focused on water quality in the upper White River Basin, runs annual shoreline cleanup events in Missouri and Arkansas. This year, a team from Diventures in Springfield joined the 2024 Missouri Shoreline Cleanup. We focused on the water around Joe Bald Park on Table Rock Lake.
Dive Buddy
One of the best parts of scuba diving getting to dive with someone new. The risk is that you’ll be diving with someone who is unpleasant or unsafe. I haven’t experienced that yet. The reward is that you’ll meet someone who teaches you more about diving. A bonus is if they’re pleasant to talk to and works well with you in the water. This day was one of those types of experiences.
I paired with Fernando, an experienced diver with extensive knowledge of diving skills, particularly showcasing impressive underwater navigation skills. I learned a lot about compass usage just watching him as he directed our path during the cleanup. He shared a couple of useful buoyancy tips and recognized that we needed to avoid using our fins due to the poor visibility, requiring us to stay close to the bottom.
Dive Preparation
This was one of the easiest dive preps I’ve ever had. It was a combination of knowing exactly what I needed to do, being able to park really close to the water, and having everything better laid out in my vehicle all contributed to this.
I keep a heavy-duty camp chair in my Suburban so I always have a place to sit. It’s from Gander Mountain (no longer in business) and has a weight capacity of 400 pounds. Why? Because a few months ago, I weighed in at 370 pounds. Now, I’m down about 40 pounds, yet another reason my dive prep is getting easier.
I was able to open the rear door on the Suburban, set the chair next to it, and use the back as a large surface area to work on my gear setup. It turns out that the height is even perfect to sit on the bumper, put on the BCD/tank, and stand with minimal effort compared to picking it up off the ground.
Unusual Gear for This Dive Day
I took my new camera. This is the first one that I’ll be posting actual video of what I was seeing underwater. It’s . . . rough. But it’s there. This served as some good experience using the camera as well as using editing software to patch together pieces of video. It’s an apeman A100 action camera, and details are listed on my gear page. I’ve got a GoPro Adventure Kit to use with it. The Handler, a floating small handle for the camera, works well. It’s comfortable to hold, has a strap to go around the wrist so I can let it drop if I need to do something, and if it happens to come free from the wrist underwater, it floats.
The Cleanup Dives
Fred and I did two dives. For both, Fred led with some incredibly impressive navigation skills, using the compass so we could cover the area in rows, shifting over a few feet at the end of each one to go back the opposite direction. We covered a huge amount of lake bottom that way during our two dives. I was already planning on taking the Navigation class, but after Fred’s impressive display, I not only want to take it, but I want to master that skill.
In between, I was planning on switching out tanks as usual, but for the first time, it was not necessary. I dove for a cumulative total of 58 minutes on one tank, starting with 2995 psi and ending with 575 psi. It was very unexpected, but pleasantly so. I’ll let the video speak for what the visibility was like.