Scuba divers splash into the silent underwater world and commence exploring sunken objects in a Caribbean-blue lake at an unlikely site inside this East Texas town's business district.
Wearing self-contained underwater breathing apparatuses, a mask and air tanks strapped on their backs, they propel themselves through the water by kicking fins on their feet.
Just ahead are a 210-foot long, man-made cave and a surprising array of submerged wrecked vehicles to explore, including two jet airliners, two cabin cruisers, three buses, 16 speed boats, house boats, two sail boats and nine motorcycles.
"With all the stuff down there, it's kind of like an underwater amusement park for divers," Staci Murphy, a diver from Canton, said as she and her husband, Steve, prepared for an afternoon of scuba diving.
The cave and sunken objects provide "a great training facility," fun and recreation for scuba divers to experience in a safe environment, said Calvin Wilcher, developer of Athens Scuba Park.
A 35-foot-deep, eight-acre spring-fed clay pit at the park is a popular dive site and favored destination among East Texas and out-of-state scuba divers.
The lake was formed as the old Harbson-Walker brick factory, one of the area's first industries. Natural white clay was excavated for use in making refractery bricks for fire places from the late 1800s until the 1960s.
With its white clay bottom, the lake is like a clear bowl of water and affords divers good visibility.
Divers drive long distances to dive into the warm water, which has good visibility, in contrast to many other East Texas lakes, swimming holes and quarries that have brown water.
Wilcher heard about the old Athens clay pit on North Murchison Street while looking for a good place in East Texas to scuba dive in 1987.
It was surrounded at the time by 50-foot hills built up as the clay was dug out. Standing on one of the mountains, Wilcher marveled that the water was clear enough that he could see a little boy swim all the way to the bottom after diving off an inner tube in the middle of the lake.
"It's very unusual. I went 'Wow! That's a perfect place to scuba dive. I've got to have that,'" recalls Wilcher, who learned to scuba dive in Lake Texoma while growing up in the Texas Panhandle.
He tracked down the owner and bought a 50-acre tract of downtown Athens that includes the lake/pit and surrounding land. Wilcher gave up his job as one of the developers of a cellphone company in Tyler and spent the next two years carving down the hills for easy access and setting up the beginning of what today is Athens Scuba Park.
In time, Wilcher turned the park into a resort that regularly attracts scuba divers from four states, but occasionally draws divers from many corners of the world. The popular park lures divers mostly from across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, although some have come from as far away as California, New York, Australia, England and Taiwan.
Attendance, which fluctuates with the temperature and weather, averages 700 to 800 people per week and totals about 25,000 in a season. The park is a major tourism draw for the community and a contributor to the local economy since divers stay in motels, eat in restaurants and shop.
They come as often as weekly or only once a month for enjoyment of the sport of scuba diving and to hone their diving skills. Experienced divers flock in, along with beginners who train here to become certified scuba divers.
People scuba dive for different reasons.
"It's a big family sport for entertainment together," Wilcher said.
In addition to recreational scuba divers, some people scuba dive because they want to learn marine biology. Others train at the park before signing up for a Seals program.
"Mostly they (scuba dive) for the excitement of seeing what's underwater ? it's just spectacular," Wilcher said.
Wilcher, a master scuba diving instructor, and his team of eight instructors teach 27 levels of scuba diving, from beginner level courses through advanced and specialty diving.
"We've trained people from 10 years old to 80 years old," Wilcher said
Divers can carry over the skills and experience gained at Athens Scuba Park to explore the seas.
The park has a unique training program for public safety personnel, including police officers, firefighters and other government officials.
They learn to search for jet airliners that crash into an ocean and for buses and other vehicles that run off bridges into lakes or rivers. They train to search for survivors, for bodies, murder weapons and for remnants of vehicles. A heavy lift bag course teaches how to run straps underneath a sunken boat, fill the air bags with air and raise the boat to the surface.
There are courses in wreck diving, search and recovery, night diving and commercial salvage diving.
It's not just the park's staff that trains scuba divers here. Fifty-seven dive shops in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana that sell scuba gear bring their customers to Athens Scuba Park and train them here because of the way the park is set up.
"There's not another place in the United States that I know of that's set up like we are with all of this in one location," Wilcher said, referring to the park's amenities.
The park has a classroom, an 11-foot-deep heated swimming pool, a lake with carpeted underwater training platforms as well as coral wrecks for divers to explore, a full-service dive shop, 11 pavilions, picnic tables, docks, bathrooms and showers with soap, shampoo and cr?me rinse; primitive camping areas and RV hookups, a sandy volley ball court, horseshoe pit and basketball goal.
The park even has 10-by-10-foot cages under trees where divers can leave their dogs with food and water while diving.
About a dozen docks scattered around the lake's perimeter allow divers to enter and exit the water with ladders.
Similar to big road culverts, an underwater cave system is a major attraction for divers. It consists of 17 pieces of steel pipe 6 feet in diameter shaped into a "y'' and a "t'' to form maize that gives divers the sense of exploring real caverns.
Among the numerous other submerged objects for divers to explore are the first Greyhound bus that country singer Ray Price toured in, a Lockheed C-140 Jet Star plane and a space capsule.
Training starts in the classroom and with watching a home video. The average class takes about four days, although there is a fast track, two-day class available.
Basic training for first-time divers is conducted in the heated swimming pool, starting on the shallow end and progressing to the deep end.
"We give a test to make sure you understand it. That afternoon, we go to the swimming pool. You do it over and over again until it's perfect," Wil-cher said.
Divers then walk over to the lake and go through the training exercises again on the bottom from carpeted training platforms.
Scuba diving lessons cost about $400, with scuba gear furnished, except for fins and a mask, which the diver provides. Once certified, a diver can buy the gear at prices ranging from $900 to $2,000, but it will last 20 years, Wilcher said.
After a scuba diver has purchased the gear, diving is inexpensive. "You can come out and spend $15 bucks and enjoy the whole day at Athens Scuba Park," Wilcher said. The lake also can be used for snorkeling and kayaks after paying a $5 entry fee.
"I've been here 23 years and never had one accident," Wilcher said. "We have a perfect track record." He noted, though, that all of the staff is trained in first aid and as first responders in case they need to respond to a mishap.
One of the area's oldest dive shops, the scuba park's dive shop, sells, repairs and services all kinds of equipment.
"It takes a long time to get something of this size built this way," Wilcher said. "With all the gear we provide and we teach you how to use, you can safely go out in any ocean or river or lake and enjoy the underwater environment," Wilcher said. "It's spectacular to see. There's more beauty down under the water than on top."
The scuba park's lake and various sunken vehicles provide a training facility where divers can have varied underwater experiences in a safe environment and are designed to increase their diving abilities, Wilcher said.
From time to time, the park sponsors special training oriented events for divers, such as underwater scavenger hunts and underwater poker games.
For the poker games, Wilcher said, "We hide cards in the lake in baggies with rocks. You have to find them and make a hand and come up and play your hand."
For monthly treasure hunts, he explained, golf balls are hidden in the lake. You find the golf balls. They have a number on them, and the number is equal to a prize. We give away an average of $35,000 a year in dive gear."
Caribbean music floating through the air from a stage accentuates the Caribbean atmosphere. Jamaican bands come in three or four times a year from South Africa, Jamaica or Dallas.
For an annual Hawaiian luau, everybody dresses in Hawaiian garb and eats Hawaiian fixings, vegetables and fruit plates, pork and barbecue.
"It's a good environment to be in," diver Steve Murphy said. After talking to 15 scuba trainers, he and his wife chose Wilcher and Athens Scuba Park. People at the park are "great and fun to be around," he said.
Diver Jerry Wusterhaesen, of Bastrop, paused on his third trip to the park, saying that the owners are hospitable and "all the people here are cool to chat with." But what draws him back more than anything, he said, is the visibility in the water.
Chris Bluethman, of Tulsa, Okla., also cited the very clear water, along with the cave system as attractions he likes.
Bob Carnie, of Willis, north of Houston, said he likes the camaraderie among scuba fans and the many submerged objects for divers.
"There's a lot of stuff for us to look at and play on in the water," Rick Smith, of Tulsa, Okla., said.
"We do this to enjoy ourselves," Smith said, referring to fellow scuba club members from Tulsa.
On a recent weekend, 17 Boy Scouts and nine dads from Troop 514 from the Colleyville-Grapevine area descended on the park for a snorkel campout.
"The dads enjoy the fellowship of being together and spending time with our sons; the boys like being in the water and the chance to dive down and see the boats and airplanes (sunk in the lake)," Jeff Pistor, one of the troop leaders, said.
Scout David Bataldua, 13, said, "I'm enjoying camping and swimming and being with my friends and working on my camping badge."
Scout Austin Pistor, 12, said, "I like being underwater and seeing things from a different perspective."
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Information from: Tyler Morning Telegraph, http://www.tylerpaper.com
Source: http://washingtonexaminer.com/entertainment/music/2011/09/divers-splash-underwater-world-scuba-park
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