Lake Quichita

[manda]

Has anyone out there dove lake quichita in Hot Springs, Ar?
My husb and I will be going there for a family reunion in July and saw theres a few dive shops around the lake and wondered what the diving is like.

 

[manda]

oops sorry about spelling think it's Quachita

 

[SubMariner]

Has anyone out there dove lake quichita in Hot Springs, Ar?
My husb and I will be going there for a family reunion in July and saw theres a few dive shops around the lake and wondered what the diving is like.

If you give us a little more info, perhaps someone can help you.

Where is "Hot Springs, Ar?"

Bonne chance,

 

[ScubaTexan]

Actually, it's spelled Ouachita.

 

[9mm]

I dive lake ouachita all the time. What would you like to know? I dove there two days last weekend.

 

[manda]

I would like to know what the viz is like and if it's good diving for beginners.

 

[9mm]

Will you be using a boat? If you are shore diving I would recommend diving Blakely mtn. dam in the town of Mtn. Pine. Vis will be about 15 to 20 foot if there has not been a lot of activity. the deeper you go, the better the vis. 1st thermocline will be at 30 ft. temp above that will be close to 75 to 80. At 70 feet the temp will be 42. we dove to 115 2 weekends ago and you will need a light for anything below 80. When will you be diving? I go up most weekends. My youngest daughter will do her checkout dive there on the weekend of the june 12-13. good diving for a for a new diver. There are several sunk boats, four wheeler frame golfcart in 25 to 60 feet and pink flamigos at 70 ft.

 

[kd5izq]

We dive there very regurally, in fact our boat is slipped there. As Divemaster Candidates the shop we're with does almost all of it's training at Lake Ouachita, in fact we just had an OW class this weekend. Conditions were fairly nice though visibility was some what disappointing due to all the boating activity (apparantly there are a lot of people out there for a week or more at a time right now). The water temp is about 76-78 on the surface and about 72-74 down to 30' where the first thermocline normally resides, below that thermocline it drops to roughly 68-70. Vis above the first thermocline was approximately 10' to 15' depending on whether or not someone had mucked the area up or not and there was little to no current down to 30' (all this info is based on an area north of point 40).

Lake Ouachita is a great lake to dive and vacation on with several different resorts to stay at, or if boating out to an island and camping is more to your liking there are many many different islands to camp on, though you have to really time it right to get some of the better ones. There are at least 2 dive shops that I am aware of on the lake, one at Brady Mountain Marian, which is fairly close to the dam that 9mm suggested (great sugestion by the way, haven't dove it myself yet, but have had a lot of friends that have and they highly recommend it) and the other shop being at Mountain Harbor Marina and Resort, both have great reputations as dive shops, though as far as I know neither offer NITROX (Enriched Air) air fills, if your certified and looking for that, you may want to bring some tanks with you or make some arraingments at one of the shops in Hot Springs, which is about 25 miles from Brady Mountain (About 30 minutes drive time).

I hope I haven't bored you with too much information, and maybe some of it will be of use to you.

 

[manda]

Thank you very much 9mm and kd5izq.
This is all very informative!

 

[kd5izq]

Your very welcome! I'm just glad I could help.