Nova Tech: Northern Virginia's Technical Diving Community

Dive Reports > 2/23/2002. Lake Rawlings, VA. Allyson Clagett

Photos are in the photo gallery

It seems that lately my weekends are consumed with waking up early, 5am or so, and hitting the road to rush off to a VB Tech meeting or to a moderate dive site. This past weekend (Sat., 2/23/2002) was no exception.

The ride from Northern Virginia down to Rawlings, Virginia was uneventful except for the annoyance of Richmond traffic. We decided to make a last stop at a rest area near Petersburg and, by coincidence, ran into some fellow Nova Tech buddies: John, Dana, and Mark; from the rest stop we all caravanned to Rawlings.

We arrived at Lake Rawlings about 9:45am and we were greeted by an assortment of people that we knew, Bill Weatherford, Bill Smith and Bob Boling, just to name a couple. They had already started our group sign in sheet and so we checked in with the staff, signed over our lives with the stroke of a pen and went outside to wait for Widen and Company.

If you want to dive Rawlings this time of year, you have to call and make special arrangements. They are generally closed but are happy to open up if you have a group that wants to dive. Dave Widen was the one who made special arrangements for all of us this day.

Once Dave Widen, Ike Bullock, JT Barker, and Tom Sawicki arrived we all piled into our vehicles (there was about 15 of us) and drove down to the lake to begin setting up for the dive. I was surprised by the amount of people, who we did not know, that were already there. It was nice to see that the extra 20 or so divers took advantage of the lake opening. The air temperature was in the mid 40’s and the sun was shining through a haze. It was a nice day to dive although a bit brisk.

Todd and I noticed there were some nice new additions here at Lake Rawlings since our last visit. The additions are the result of a small portion of the movie “The Replacements” with Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman being filmed here.

Lake Rawlings has a nice dock that juts out from the beach that makes for an easy entry into the water. I appreciated being able to stand in about 5 feet of water, hold on to the dock, and don and doff my fins easily. Usually, this is a process that takes quite a bit of Braun if you own jet fins with spring straps. Whew!

The dock was lined with an assortment of scooters: Apollo’s, Gavin’s (in a variety of colors), and one Mako that flooded on its dive. Before suiting up, Todd made some adjustments to the reed switch on Tom’s Gavin, just as he had to do on his own.

The water clarity was wonderful; I would guess 50-55’. Although, once some other divers made their trek out into the lake it diminished somewhat. JT wanted to know who was “diggin’ for treasure out there.”

Among the attractions at Lake Rawlings are several boats, some right side up with keel laying on the bottom and another boat that looked as if it had made a head first dive into the water, the bow is firmly wedged into the silty bottom. Tom Sawicki was happy to report later that he made his first penetration with his Gavin Scooter; I believe he was speaking of the compact bus that is also a favorite here at Rawlings.

Another attraction at the lake is that there is an anchor line, hang bar, current line mock up that leads to a surface platform-- a nice way to practice descending and ascending an anchor line.

Todd, Tom and JT with Jim Cobb’s Gavin decided to race. There had been mention on Techdiver that there were some of GI’s scooters out there that had a higher than normal thrust. Todd and Tom quickly saw that they had the faster scooters as they left JT behind. After the Gavin races Todd towed me around the entire lake, and we stopped occasionally to practice some skills that seem to diminish rather quickly when you take a few months off of diving.

Todd and I spent a total of 52 min in the water, which I thought was pretty good for the water temp. Jeff Hewlett reported later that the temp was 48°F.

At the end of our dive Todd handed off his Gavin to me so that I could take it for a spin. That sucker is powerful and I could not find the sweet spot so that I wouldn't get beat with the prop wash. I was told to please return it after I crashed it into the bottom in 6 feet of water. It's a good thing GI makes 'em to last.

All in all, I had a wonderful time diving and passing time with friends. There were several new people on this trip that I, unfortunately, did not get introduced to (thanks Widen!) but there is always another day.

There are a few pictures of Lake Rawlings and a snowy dive at Mt. Storm, WV located on the Nova Tech web site.

--Allyson

Hey Alex, I was told to pass along this message: You can dive with the VB Tech “usual crew” if you get rid of your duck fins and stroke gear.