Fortune Pond May 14th - 15th

[swimjim]

It appears that the First planned run to Fortune Pond is in the works. This will be on Friday May 14th and Saturday May 15th. There maybe a few hangers on the morning of the 16th as well. See you there!

Swimjim

[SurfLung]

I'm committed... Made my reservation at Lakeshore Motel for Friday and Saturday nights.

[hunterkz]

Can you give me the location of the pond and what the water temps and conditions are like there? Any other details would be appreciated.
Thank you

[swimjim]

Fortune Pond is just outside of Crystal Falls (Upper) Michigan. It was an open pit iron mine. It features sheer drop offs with excellent viz that can give you the feeling that your flying at times. Below about 80 feet viz of 200 feet is common. Water temp in May will probably be mid 40's or so. Search past gathering in this section of the forum for pictures and videos. I have videos on Vimeo and Youtube as well.

[SurfLung]

Surface Visible from 117 Feet Below

[SheriffDiver]

I'll be there and there will be some new/old equipment being debuted. Some equipment some have seen already, there will be some being dove that nobody has seen me with yet. There also is a door prize for those of us who attend. Should be a fun time.

[swimjim]

Had a little discussion with Sherriff diver from Minnesota today. He is one of our Vintage diver friends. He will be providing some door prizes for our event on Saturday the 15th. From what I understand it will be done by drawing from a deck of cards to determine the winners. Food was the next chapter of our discussion. Ron will be providing BBQ on Friday and I will whip up a batch of chili for Saturdays lunch. That ought to thaw out divers coming out of the pond! See you there!!!

[SurfLung]

A Personal Invitation...

We have a dive trip scheduled for Fortune Pond this weekend May 14-16. It's been posted for a few months here on the VDH website so I kind of forgot about sending out personal email invitations. So, I apologize if this is short notice for you. Notice that it's not on Mother's Day weekend!

It looks like a fun time. Ron Bentz will have BBQ Sandwiches for Friday Lunch. SwimJim will have his famous Chili for Saturday lunch. Ron's gone and wrapped up something like 7 door prizes to give away.

It's looking like we'll have a few possible theme dives: DivAir, Trieste, Voit Navy, Kawasaki DAAM, Snark III, etc.

Scooters... Diver Propulsion Vehicles... We may have as many as 5 of them up there this time.

New Toys to check out... Rich's Twin 45s, Rons new Dive Xtras DPV (runs on 20v Drill Batteries).

Attendance: We're expecting Myself, Rich, Ron, SwimJim, Eric P, and Mike from the Black Hills. Possibly a few other guys that Ron and SwimJim know.

Lodging; We've all had reservations at Claudias Lakeshore Motel for several months. If they're full up, try the Chicaguan motel that's a little out in the country... right next to a nice golf club with a great restaurant. There's also the AmericInn right in town (Iron River, MI). If you can't find anything available, there might be space for a cot in one of our rooms.

Dining: Alice's Restaurant is open. There's a good Pizza place. And McDonalds and Subway. Real nice grocery store, too.

Well, that about covers everything, I think. Hope you can join us... Eben

[SurfLung]

Valuable Door Prizes... Even... Wow What a Trip!
- First of All, the water was CRYSTAL clear. Easily 100 feet visibility. Ron and Mike got some amazing underwater photography due to the clarity of the water and the exotic-ness of the gear. Absolutely STUNNING underwater landscapes to fly over. We could see each other way off in the distance.
- Turnout was great amongst our usual group but we had a special treat in having Mike Curran from out near Winner South Dakota. He drove 12 hours each way to come and dive with us. And man, he brought some fun dive gear to get a look at. Between him and Ron, we had WWII UDT dive gear, Thunderball re-enactment (both good and bad guys), Cousteau yellow stripes, and more. Myself? I always go as Mike Nelson... I thought it was obvious... .
- SwimJim and I dove our DivAir regs, Rich and I had a Voit NAvy Theme Dive, Everybody got a chance to drive the heck out of three DPV scooters. Eric and Mark dove sophisticated Re-Breather units. Big tanks, little tanks, singles, doubles, triples... We dove it all.
- Food was fabulous. Friday we ate Ron's BBQ Beef for lunch and Alice's Restaurant for Dinner. Saturday we had all-you-could -eat of SwimJim's award winning Chili... Man that was good. THANKS JIM and RON for the great lunches.
- Then on Saturday Afternoon, Ron breaks out a bunch of door prizes in brightly wrapped boxes... It looked like Christmas! We won our prizes by the draw of a card. I won a beautiful hand made Scuba Wind Chime. Rich 50,000 Questions won a NIB Snark III regulator. SwimJim won some Turbo fins. I can't remember all of the door prizes Ron sponsored for this trip. Thank you Ron! That was awfully nice of you.
- Well that's all I've got to report for now. If we're lucky, Ron and Mike will post some pics and video.

[swimjim]

It was an awesome weekend. My last dive was not only with my DivAir, I dove my Hydroglove with it! Mike got some nice video of me. Otherwise, what Eben said... Great diving and great food! Ron putting up the door prizes put it way way over the top! Mike's UDT suit was really interesting. It's a rear entry so you have to depend on a dive buddy to help you with it. I got the honor of twisting off the entry tube and applying the clamp. I guess I got it right because it didn't leak. Another great weekend at Fortune Pond!

[SheriffDiver]

[SheriffDiver]

[SheriffDiver]

[SheriffDiver]

[h2operations]

That you for sharing the videos. Does that visibility last all season? or do you get a bloom later in the summer ?