Project Baseline – Tahoe: Dive #2

Observation Date:	11 August, 2012
Dive Team Members:	Marc Briseno, Todd Kincaid, Laura James, Vanessa Belz, Martin McClellan
Begin Time: 1:00	End Time: 1:30        Bottom Time: 25min
Weather Conditions:	Clear, Calm, Sunny
Wind	Direction : N/M Speed: N/M Duration: N/M
Water Conditions
Surface	Flat w/tremendous boat chop
Last 24 hrs:	Calm, Afternoon Thunderstorms, temp mid 80’s
Temperature:	Surface- 66f At Depth-        Site Gauge- 66f           Diver Gauge- 68f
Visibility:	Vertical- ‘32 (could see boat from below     Horizontal- 30′-40′
Current:	Direction- Southerly longshore Speed- 25′-30′ per minute
Site Depth Benchmark reading (Per the site gauge): 22 ffw     Dive Team Gauge:  #1– 21 ffw     #2– 22ffw
Animal & Plant Life
Fin Fish	Description : Lahontan Mountain Sucker (

Catostomus platyrhynchus lahontan) Piute Sculpin (Cottus beldingi)Golden Shiner (Notemigonus crysoleucas)

  Quantity: Several of each and several schools of the Shiners

       Copepod Est. Density: Low     Invasive Species None Present        Mysis Shrimp Est. Density: N/M

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Team Observations/Comments: This was an exciting day as it was NMDE’s second official Project Baseline Tahoe dive and joining the NMDE team were Todd Kincaid, VP GUE and Vanessa Belz, Project Baseline Director GUE and Laura James, Seattle based videographer and GUE diver.  The objective was to set up the SS Tahoe and the Sand Harbor Site.  This was the second dive of the mission and at the bottom, we secured a permanent altitude adjustable depth gauge (Tekna Zero Adjust) which we zeroed at the surface and a thermometer gauge.  These gauges are mounted in an aluminum box and secured to our depth benchmark preventing the gauges from moving.  We then established visibility markers at 30-40-50-60 feet from the depth benchmark location.  Unlike the visibility in Glenbrook at our SS Tahoe site, the visibility here was much better at between 30&40′. Again, these markers were placed with the use of a physical tape measure.  Again, this dive had two teams, Marc Briseno and Martin McClellan doing the work of establishing the PB station and Todd Kincaid (video support) and Laura James (videographer).  Project Baseline Director, Vanessa Belz was our surface support and boat tender during this operation. Dive was short in duration due to the schedule for the day, 25min at 28′ with water temps at 66f as this time of year in the shallow depths of the lake with sandy bottoms (Sand Harbor is typical of this type of bottom composition) the thermocline is not dominantly present until 50-55′ and even during a later dive to 65′ the bottom temperature did not drop below 58f..