Wazee Dive Report
- We had a split turnout for this event. Sea Hunt Jerry and Sheriffdiver Ron couldn't make it Friday so they went a day early and dove on Thursday. As you can tell from Ron's video above, the water and weather were beautiful... Both days. The two of them estimated visibility from 15-30 feet.
- Friday we had me, my wife Jill, Nanett, and Jay diving. We all met at Sherwood Forest access point at 8:00 AM. We did our deep dive down the slope, between the trees to the platform that sits on the edge of a cliff. About 60 feet deep there and cold. Jill says her hooded vest made a huge difference from other dives. We swam back to the ridge and then along it at about 30-40 feet deep until the ridge came down to our level. Then we swam over the ridge and out to the sunken Chris Craft launch. Played around there awhile. Swam back through the concrete tubes and spent our safety stop poking around the fish cribs. About a 25 minute dive. We all still had some air left and decided to do another short dive... We split up. Jay and I swam out along the ridge to find the big plastic "Lego Man"... A recent addition somebody made by bolting together plastic drums... It's pretty huge. Swam back through the forest and ended with about a 20 minute dive and still air to spare.
- After a decent surface interval, we all got fresh tanks and I gave alternating scooter rides as we swam along the shoreline about 20 feet deep... We went all the way to the inlet of the swimming beach and back. That one was about a 35 minute dive. We all still had air left so we just did our own thing for one more short dive. I drove the scooter some more while Nanett and Jill swam along the "wall".
- There were two dry suit divers hanging around in the sand above the ridge. They were done diving but stayed there kicking sand down the ridge and stirring things up. I didn't notice that until I swooped the scooter down the ridge and straight into a cloud of MILKY blue water. This is an area that was clear only a few minutes before when Jay and I came back from LegoMan. I swear that cloud looked like someone had injected something into the water... I immediately thought it was something chemical and tried to find the girls to warn them. When I reached them, they were already quite a ways further down the shore and away from the cloud.
- So I came back to the two divers and asked them if they knew anything about it. They said it was just silt stirred up. But they stayed there kicking sand down the slope and ruining visibility. And it got me wondering if they were covering it up with the kick up silt? I'm suspicious of what is done to lakes in the name of "management". Those guys didn't look official. And my suspicions could be unfounded. Weird.
- After that we cooked up some brats and had a great lunch with Wisconsin cheese curds, chips, pop and Nanett's home made cookies.
- We all hit the road by 2:30 and arrived home Friday night.