Lake Pleasant conditions

[shark.byte.usa]

Did 3 dives Saturday off of Desert Tortoise Rd. within spittin distance of Burro Island. Viz 10'+/- Water Temp 84F to 50'.

 

[mdmbike to scuba]

Hey guys do we have to have a dive flag out when diving at the lake? Mark

 

[booth22]

Yep- AZ boating laws say divers and snorkelers must have a diver down flag displayed when anyone is below the surface. you can find the exactly wording if you check out AZ Game and Fish's website.

 

[mdmbike to scuba]

Thanks booth22 for your help. I guess I got to buy one now.

 

[shark.byte.usa]

Funny thing is..We are REQUIRED to have one, but watercraft are only SUGGESTED to stay 100YDS away from it :shakehead

◆ Scuba divers or snorkelers must display a “diver down
flag” that marks their diving area. The flag must be
displayed whenever someone is diving below the surface.
◆ Vessels should stay as far away from a “diver down flag”
as is reasonable and prudent for the circumstances. The
suggested safe distance from a flag is 100 yards.

Too bad the majority of watercraft operators probably have never read the book or follow the suggested safe distance and unless they publish it in Spanish it does little good.

Garrett

 

[Dive-aholic]

They don't even pay attention to the no wake zones. This weekend we had a couple of boats buzz past our dive flag that was in a no wake zone. We also had a bunch of jet skis buzz by too. I called MCSO to report them and we did have lake patrol come over to the area, but by then the activity had stopped.

BTW, Water temp was 85 degress to 41 feet, then a slight thermocline from 41 to 52 feet where it drops down to the 50s. Visibility was about 10' on Saturday and Sunday morning. It dropped to about 5' Sunday afternoon, probably because of all the activity mentioned above. Vis below 40' was about 5', below 50' it was about 1'. We dove the cove between the end of Desert Tortoise Rd. and Burro Island (which is now a peninsula). Water level at the lake is down about 40' which makes Scorpion Bay unaccessible without a long surface swim. Not much to see at this site unfortunately, but it served its purpose. We got to dive! Also, Garrett got his AOW/PPB so now he can do Rescue. We also had a couple of other divers come out and finish up a specialty. And we introduced a diver to lake diving! This was someone who has been certified for almost 10 years and never been fresh water diving. Okay, she wasn't impressed with the bottom composition, but she did say it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. She even ended up doing 2 rather long dives! I think we have another recruit.

Here's a little about what we did see at this site. We saw a little more fish life on the Sat. night dive and on our Sunday dives than during the other dives. We also found a small sink hole in about 31' of water. It's about 5' wide and drops down about 3-4' with a rubble mound in the center. It curves in around the edges anywhere from 1-3'. It also has a significant thermocline in the hole.

 

[shark.byte.usa]

I think we should make a flyer and have it translated into Spanish to hand out. Maybe send it over to quepasa.com For 'whitey' there's plenty of rocks to be hurled

Garrett

 

[scubajcf]

Waddell Data as of 08/28/2006 04:05:59 PM
Lake Pleasant Water Surface Elevation: 1662.53
Lake Pleasant - % Full: 58.80
Lake Pleasant - Surface Area (acres): 7292.73
Plant Pumping(+)/Releasing(-) Flow (cfs): -2228.76
River Outlet Works Flow (cfs): 0.00
Lower Lake Elevation: 1436.11

 

[Dive-aholic]

Lake level is 40 feet down. I checked the G&F site last week and verified with a depth map. The roads by to the water are a little rough (they have been underwater for several months). Not having Scorpion Bay as a site isn't that great. There was a lot of life in that cove. We didn't see much at the location we were at this past weekend. The depth map also doesn't show much in any other promising sites.

If anyone knows of a location that has decent fish life, let us know.

 

[shark.byte.usa]

What looks to be a promising site I'd like to check out is Jack***** cove, but not sure if it's accessible from shore. Rob, I was wrong the road only goes up to Honeymoon cove according to my map. See next post for inset.

Garrett