<-- Content: Frank Poye HTML: Frank Poye - April 10, 1997 --> bgcolor="#000000" text="#ffffff" link="#ffffff" vlink="#ffffff" alink="#ffffff"> Scuba with Frank & Laura
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Scuba with Frank & Laura


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 Summer ~ Winter, what ever. It's never a good time to just hang out in the house and wish you were underwater having fun. A good thick wetsuit and a bit of nerve is really all it takes to get out in all but the coldest of water. It's getting out of the water that's cold!!
We head off to Florida in March sometimes and I'll be Darned if it's not warmer here in Texas while we are gone quite often.
These are some stories and some photos of a few of the places we go.

Recent Dives


Scuba Photos Gallery


Sunset after Our last dive

Lake Broken Bow in Oklahoma is probably my favorite place to dive. We play around in a small isolated coves a short distance from the Marina. Lake access is by land or by boat. The rocks are pretty and get even better if you go to deeper water areas. We scouted around the spillway and dam area and found a couple of nice dive sites with cliff walls that can be explored to a depth of 140 ft. The walk down and up to these have trails and might be a bit hard but the diving is nice. Be sure to have plenty of thermal protection year round if you plan to dive deep. Surface tempretures may be balmy but expect water temps, in the upper 40's at a 100 feet and deeper year round. The walls and trees down deep are great and the visibility always seems to imrove the deeper you go. It is dark down there so bring a good dive light as well.
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Laura and I make dives off the end of the peninsula at Stevens Gap just North of the Marina/Dam area. We find it pretty clear with visibility of at least 10 and sometimes 15 ft. Near shore and it stays clear down to about 20 feet. For some reason any deeper then that and it get murky. Again, the bottom changes to mud at about that depth and is not as rocky which might explain why. BTW... you want to have a dive flag because it's the law and it will cost the Hell out of you if you get caught without one.

Water temp in the Summer is usually about 86 F. and cools just a bit into the lower 70's at 26 feet . Just a few hundred feet off the peninsula is a small island and across the lake about 1/3 mile is a nice high sheer cliff area with a small beach accessable only by boat or a surface swim. It's a cool little place to dive and has one nice cliff drop off with some old trees. We've taken a small boat or our Sea-Doo and packed our stuff over to the cliffs near the spillway and had good dives there. It'll take a of couple minutes to make the crossing to the cliffs. You can also park at the sceanic over look and take the goat trail there too.

We have also done a cool little river dive on the Mountain Creek River in Beavers Bend State Park just below the dam. There the water is not very deep but there are cool Water Dog ~ Salamanders and Big Ole'Crawdads

There a cool dive shop on about three miles west of Broken Bow ( West at the railroad tracks ~ look for the dive signs to Scuba Divers Rd.)
You might want to rent some spare tanks as its about 15 miles from the dive sites.

Texas Swamp Diver ~ scubaboard.com

Cliff Dive at Broken Bow

Cliffs at Broken Bow Cliffs at Broken Bow Cliffs at Broken Bow

One Sunday we went up to Broken Bow again to check out the cliffs near the dam. We did one dive along the cliffs above. The water here gets deep really fast. They tell me it goes down to well over 100 feet... maybe 140+ feet. Our dive was only to 32 feet but we covered a lot a distance... probably about a 1/3 of a mile on the 52 minute dive. We ran into a number of trees along the way. I was not expecting to find old trees under the cliffs but that is just what was there in places. The water was comfortable and at times really clear. At times it got murky too so the visibility was mixed. Generally it was good along the shore and less at depth. The fish were out and we spotted a few lunkers and a number of pretty little small ones. We spent the afternoon scouting around the dam and snorkeling to find future sites to explore. We found some great looking places near the dam and enjoyed watching a fish feeding frenzy. Some of the cliff areas were really spectacular! We came back the next week and dove near the dam and had mixed results as the visibility was not great and we dropped down into a bunch of trees more then once... not too cool. Ivy got caught up in a bunch of fishing line and it took about 5 minutes to free her up. The walk down and then 'back up' at the dam really sucks !!! But.. I went back a year later and did 2 dives there.
Beautiful shore entry near the Cliffs Frank at cliffs near the dam
I got together with "Twins and Fins", a dive group from Tyler,TX. a week or so later and we made some cool dives here at these cliffs. The water is about 140ft deep here but the best fun is to be had along the walls at about 30 to 40 feet. I loved it. I'd have to say it was some of the best local lake diving I've done.

Ivy Laura & Frank at Lake Broken Bow, Oklahoma

Dive Valhalla Dive Valhalla If Your looking for a radical dive then you have to book a dive at the Valhalla Missile Silo near Abilene, TX. It's a 60 foot wide ICBM Missile silo that has flooded with 60 degree ground water that is crystal clear. It is used for diving now. It is 5 stories underground and the water is 130 feet deep and since there are no lights underwater it is sort of dark at the bottom. It is unlike anything you'll ever do in your life. You can check out the photo gallery and see some of the pictures from the dive site.

Diving Panama City, Florida at the Jetties and in the Gulf on the U.S.S. Strength

Laura & Fish Fish Crab Fish Fish Fish Fish on the U.S.S. Strength Fish on the U.S.S. Strength Fish on the U.S.S. Strength Fish on the U.S.S. Strength Fish on the U.S.S. Strength Fish on the U.S.S. Strength Panama City Beach at Sunset


For easy safe diving it's sorta hard to beat Clear Springs Scuba Park near Terrell, Tx. We go there year round and enjoy the fish and turtles.
Fish Frank Fish Fish Fish Fish Fish and Snapping Turtle Fish at the Silos Fish at the Silos Ivy at the Plane forward cabin hatch on the Boat Entering the boat forward cabin area


Lake Murray, Oklahoma


Lake Murray, Oklahoma is a pretty lake in Southern Oklahoma that has some diverse diving conditions. One can find shallow clear coves with nice visibility, rocky shore walls, bolders, some amusements such as boats, platforms and motorcycles at Marietta Landing and some scarry stuff in deeper water were visibility is down to 3 feet or less and it's freaky dark. A memorable blackwater dive was The 'Crab Trap' at 80 feet below the tower between Marietta Landing and the Spillway. We had to rope up to go down the cliff to enter the water. The underwater trees and big old clams are interesting.
cliff shore entry at Lake Murray, OK. Big Clam~Lake Murray, OK. Alan at Lake Murray, OK. Alan at Lake Murray, OK. Darter Fish at Lake Murray, OK.

See you at the thermocline !

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