Disclaimer: I don’t see anything interesting so it might be a good idea to skip this adventure.
I went to Soap Lake yesterday morning to check it out. I went on the southeastern side since that is where the public access places are, but it turns out that it’s also very shallow. I really had to fight to get the ROV launched.
A friend sent me a link to a site that has fishing depth maps and the North side is the deepest part, and I see a pull-off on the highway right there. I will probably go back there today or tomorrow and see if the visibility is good enough to do some exploring, but I’m expecting it to be a murky mess. i-Boating : Free Marine Navigation Charts & Fishing Maps
Highlights:
0:30 - Failure to launch
0:48 - Kinetically Assisted Launch, probably not recommended
1:54-6:10 - Battle for the dive, definitely not recommended
13:30 - I find a rock. Yes, It’s the highlight of the dive.
19:00 - I used all 150 Meters of tether and reached the deepest part of the dive (4.2 feet)
33:28 - I find a SECOND rock! It’s not as good as the first rock
36:31-37:45 Navigating through the small rocks next to shore
40:25 - gently dragging the ROV back to shore by the tether, probably not recommended but keeps sand out of thrusters.
Both sonars were useless on this dive so no Ping Viewer screenshots.
I also started using the flashlight on my phone to easily sync the GoPro to the ROV stream video.
