BAY AREA DIVERS
The 'Get Wet' Club!
www.bayareadivers.org
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BAY AREA DIVERS |
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Bay Area Divers |
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330 North Dixie Drive
Lake Jackson, TX 77566
979 285-0600
Cost to enter is $20.00 per day per diver.
Non-divers - $10
Cash or check only, please.
There is a full service dive shop on site.
Rental tanks are available for $12.00/day. Air fills are $6.00
BC rentals - $15/day Regs - $15/day
No camping at present. Hope to by summer 2009.
Restaurant is open.
BBQ pits are allowed.
For photos of the lake go to http://main.zgib.net/galleries/hydrosports/mammoth-lake-1
The phone is 979 285-0600.
In November 2003 a backhoe operator at the pit unearthed a mammoth tusk, then a week later found a pair of tusks. A skull and other bones also were found. Scientists determined the skull was about 38,000 years old and came from a Colombian mammoth.
Developers are hoping the items and many others – including an old F-5 Navy jet already in
the 55 acre pit – will help create one of the nation's largest lakes reserved for scuba divers seeking to explore large objects.
Hydrosports Scuba of Lake Jackson Texas opened Mammoth Lake for scuba diving in April 2008. Mike and Michelle Cryer are owners and operators of Hydrosports Scuba at Mammoth Lake in Lake Jackson Texas. Michelle is an Advanced Open Water Instructor, and Mike is an Instructor Trainer.
Mike is also a Platinum Pro 5000 Instructor.
They offer scuba-diving classes, with open water instruction, trips, sell scuba diving equipment and when the lake is filled, will offer kayaking. A restaurant is built near the scuba shop.
A lot of people, after they get scuba certified, quit diving because there is no place to go. Mammoth Lake will give them that place and will be beyond their wildest imagination.
Kenny Vernor
and Mike Cryer together collected items such as a 150-year-old anchor
from a Spanish galleon to a modern fighter jet and space shuttle boom to
submerge in the Vernor Sandpit that will transform the pit into a dive
pond.
Giant metal sculptures of mammoths, humans and turtles, the looping
starship ride and pieces of the Mayan Mindbender from
Astroworld, boats of all sizes, jets and old
missile parts from NASA, fire trucks and buses are just a few things
being placed in the sandpit that eventually will be filled with water to
create Mammoth Lake.
Even the
pink mammoth eventually will be placed in the pit.
In
addition to these items, the different areas of the lake will have
themes.
Where the
Mayan Mindbender lies will be called the Mayan Underwater; sunken boats
will be placed in a rectangular shape and called the Bermuda Rectangle;
the mammoth sculptures will be set where the remains of a Columbian
mammoth were found and is tentatively titled Jurassic Park; the F-5 jet,
other items from NASA and the looping starship will have a space theme;
and the buses will be called the Bus Stop, Mike Cryer said.
“Diving
in the Gulf, all you see is flat sand. Here you will get to explore the
unusual,” Mike Cryer said.
A large
underwater cave system also is being constructed for those who are
certified cave divers.
“Texas
A&M University asked for it because the nearest cave system to dive in
is in Florida,” Mike Cryer said. Catfish, bass and perch will all be
stocked in the lake to add marine life.
Kenney Vernor, President of Vernor Materials and Equipment, is tracking
down unusual items to create what he and Hydrosports Scuba Shop owners
Mike and Michelle Cryer hope will be a national destination for divers
which will create a anachronistic underwater world.
The 3,600 square-foot scuba store that
will house an indoor pool along with class instructions and diving
supplies.
With the addition of the dive lake, the facility would be able to train,
certify and equip divers all at one site. The 55 acre dive lake rivals some of the largest in the nation.
Additionally, the lake has a maximum depth of 65 feet, making it
suitable for a deep-dive certification site.
The Mammoth Lake is named after the discovery of mammoth fossils while
digging in the Verner Sandpit and remains of a 5-foot armadillo, giant
sloth’s and beavers as well as a bowl carbon-dated to more than 4,000
years old.
Hydrosports hopes to attract 200-800 divers a month and become a
nationally recognized diving destination.
These people will need places to stay and restaurants to eat at, Cryer
said. It will be a real boost to the local economy.
Note: Bay Area Divers is a 501c4 'Not for Profit' organization. Click here for more information.
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