Lake Quinsigamond

[Jimbiana]

Yesterday, my dive buddy and I dove lake quinsigamond off of the state park located accross from u-mass. It was nice to get under the water after work without having to drive the hour and half to the ocean. Vis was okay about 15 feet to begin the dive but once we got out about 30 feet it droved to about 6 feet. The great part was the lake droped down to 80 feet about 30 feet off of shore so it made for a nice depth of 80 feet. When we arrived at the state park there were signs that said no swimming so we talked to the ranger and told him we were looking to dive there, thankfully he was an old diver so he gave us some tips on were to dive and how deep it was out there. I guess by the 290 bridge it drops down to 120 feet, I didn't even realise that that lake was so deep. The only bad part was boaters actually came closer to our bouye because it was foriegn to them. But thankfully the ranger went out with his boat and told a couple of the boaters to keep away from the flag, which was cool in my book.

 

[Green_Manelishi]

Yesterday, my dive buddy and I dove lake quinsigamond off of the state park located accross from u-mass. It was nice to get under the water after work without having to drive the hour and half to the ocean. Vis was okay about 15 feet to begin the dive but once we got out about 30 feet it droved to about 6 feet. The great part was the lake droped down to 80 feet about 30 feet off of shore so it made for a nice depth of 80 feet. When we arrived at the state park there were signs that said no swimming so we talked to the ranger and told him we were looking to dive there, thankfully he was an old diver so he gave us some tips on were to dive and how deep it was out there. I guess by the 290 bridge it drops down to 120 feet, I didn't even realise that that lake was so deep. The only bad part was boaters actually came closer to our bouye because it was foriegn to them. But thankfully the ranger went out with his boat and told a couple of the boaters to keep away from the flag, which was cool in my book.

Did you find anything of interest during the dive or just mud, rock, silt and sand? Many houses around that lake, someone must have surely dumped 'trash' in it once or twice.

Signs said no swimming but the ranger allowed diving? Hmmm.
Must be afraid of surface swimmers being whacked by goobers in boats.

 

[decapoddiver]

You lucked out with the vis. I've done it a few times (only when really desperate :11: ) and the best I've had was about 5'. Nice to hear that you had a good time. The only thing I ever found was a few cars.

 

[Jimbiana]

The vis ended up getting pretty bad at the end of the dive my buddy kicked up a nice patch of silt and then took a face plant into the silt after he got alittle disoranted. We found a couple of the "rare and exotic" coca cola cans, and a bunch of boards and an old manhole cover. All in all it was mostly silt under the water. But I had to get in the water, I did a two month long roadtrip after I graduated college so it took away a huge chunk of my summer diving season. I think the no swimming was mainly due once you got in the water and fought of the ducks, you swam out over a bunch of weeds and i'm sure that was the reason for the no swimming signs so people didn't get caught up, plus the drop off was significant.

 

[DarkFrog]

Signs said no swimming but the ranger allowed diving? Hmmm.
Must be afraid of surface swimmers being whacked by goobers in boats.

The final dive of my AOW class took place at the outlet of a small dam plastered with "no-swimming" signs. My instructor said it was okay because we weren't swimming, we were diving.

 

[matt_unique]

I have heard of divers finding guns and all kinds of things in Quinsig. I had no idea it was so deep near the 290 bridge. Almost half the lake is extremely shallow - as in - less than 15'.

--Matt

 

[Jimbiana]

I remember reading an artical just this back in august of last year about a diver finding three handguns that were stolen from a charlton home. I've also some heard rumors that someone throw an ATM machine in there, but i have no idea if there true or not. Also someone just this year lost the outboard motor for there boat somewhere in the middle of the lake. To bad we didn't find anything like that, but there's always next time.