Looking for Local Dive Sites in Arizona!!!

[LakeScubaDiver]

I have absolutley no experience diving in Arizona, but would greatly appreciate any help identifying some local dive spots. Any help that you might be able to provide would be greatly appreciated. My reason for asking is two-fold. First, I am a military guy and up for re-assignment later this year and there is a good possibility I could come to Arizona. So if I do I need to know where I will be diving. Secondly, I help run a site that provides divers information on local diving all over the country, as well as dive shop info and local dive clubs. The site is www.lakediver.com and while we have a ton of information in our database, we don't have anything for the state of Arizona. We are currently researching this state and could use some assistance. We have a monthly drawing where we give away a Lake Diver T-Shirt to one lucky person, and you can be entered into that drawing by submitting local dive site information, pictures, or videos. For every submission, you get an entry into the drawing. Anyway, check us out and if you would like to help us you can email us through the site or at contactus@lakediver.com. Thanks for the help, we do appreciate it. And if I do get assigned there, I hope to meet some of you while diving the local sites.

Mike

 

[diversteve]

If you're stationed at Luke west of Phoenix, then the closest decent lake diving is at Lake Pleasant just north of town. Depending on how bad you want to get wet, there's also diving at Saguaro Lake and Canyon Lake to the east of Phoenix. Since most of the lakes in the area are fed by snow runoff, the water is cold most of the year. The top of Lake Pleasant may get to 80 in the summer, but below the thermocline it can still be in the high 50's or less.

On the Colorado River - Arizona's western border, there's fairly good diving in Lake Mojave, so/so diving in Lake Mead since it's so low - we've had a drought in the west for about a decade now, and diving in Lake Havasu.

If you're stationed at Ft. Huachuca in Sierra Vista, there's nothing in that area worth diving, people in the Tucson area generally dive San Carlos MX, or Himalaya Bay MX - probably the closest warm water diving, but facilities at HB are limited to mostly camping - one diveshop from Tucson brings everything with them on their trips. San Carlos has really good diving and is probably the preferred local destination for some of the diveshops in the Phoenix area. One of the best diveshops here has a satellite facility there also.

Local southern Arizona divers generally make the 2-3 hr. trek to Lake Pleasant for local lake diving.

A lot of Arizona diving is done in the Pacific. Phoenix is only about 6 hours driving from great diving in the Kelp Forests off both San Diego/La Jolla Marine Park and the L.A. area. You can also dive the Channel Islands pretty conveniently from Santa Barbara.

See www.southwestscuba.com for more info. If you do get assigned here, join us on AZScuba - we have our own forum here.

my .02

 

[LakeScubaDiver]

Steve,
That was an outstanding breakdown, I really appreciate it! If I do get stationed there it will be at Luke so it sounds like the closest diving would be Lake Pleasant. I will do a little research on the lake and see what I can find. What do you think of diving it? Is it pretty good? Any cool things to see? I am in Oklahoma right now and do a lot of diving at Tenkiller in Oklahoma, Beaver Lake in Arkansas, and Table Rock in Missouri. Sometimes go diving in Texas and New Mexico (recently went to the Blue Hole - pretty cool). Anyway, thanks again for the info, it is a lot of help!

Mike

 

[shark.byte.usa]

Mike,

I went ahead and added Lake Pleasant to your website while checking it out. You can find out all the info you need on www.southwestscuba.com that you need, I think there may be Lake Pleasant sticky thread in the AZScuba forum, you can join now and poke around. Lake Pleasant is about a 30 minute drive from the base and about the best diving within a 5 hr drive of the base; except perhaps Lake Mohave, which I don't know where or anything about. But San Diego/LA/OC lots of great diving to choose is about a 4.5-6.5 hr drive depening on your driving style They're all about the same distance [LA a little farther]. San Carlos from what I hear from reading other sites is 8 hrs from Tuscon, so about 9.5 from the base aka "reserved for a long weekend". So plenty of great salt water diving to do if you get some days off.

[Wow I'm getting really tired...wow it's late.. so I'll start summaring]

Since I dove with someone who is familiar with Lake Pleasant last month, I may have become a convert and will dive it more;[I'm pretty close to the lake also]. I saw tons of life and it was a couple fun dives that I went into with low expectations, based on 5 very dissapointing dives last summer; only time will tell if I become a true Lake Diver. So I'd say there are worse places to be stationed if your a diver; [suprisingly] plenty of dive shops and divers; although the majority don't dive the lakes.

Good luck with your next duty station and if it's here PM me and we'll go diving at the lake.

Garrett

 

[LakeScubaDiver]

Thanks Garrett, I will do that. I appreciate the advice, and if I get Luke, I will look you up. I also love diving salt water, any diving really. However I will always have a special place in my heart for the lakes, got to love a 80 ft dive in midafternoon, and you need a light cannon!

Mike

 

[ldsdoc]

Lake Mojave

I've been to Lake Mojave and it's pretty cool. It's right next to Laughlin, NV so you can stay in the casino hotels if you don't want to camp. As far as the diving goes, someone sunk a couple of busses, some boats, and put a skeleton with a treasure chest down there about 40-70 feet. There are also navigation plaques and a bunch of diamond-shaped hoops you can swim through.

I think you just shore dive at Cabinsite. I'd bring an easy-up or some shelter of some kind when you're out of the water because it's just lake and desert out there. I seem to remember it taking me about 4 hours to drive from Phoenix, but it's probably less. You can google pics of it. It's a fun dive.

 

[SynCitizen]

Heres some sample sites that are boat only accessible on Lake Mojave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKRrPr7HEok

Cabinsite Pt. is the primary training area on Mojave. There are some nice features to the area, Deep water to 110', W-SW off the point, a school bus, van, buoyancy rings and "scuba steve" (the skeleton) 40'+ deep (line up the two bathrooms and drop straight down about 50' off the shore). a 40' cabin cruiser and a speed boat are shore accessible across the other side of the point.

I am diving Cabinsite (1.5hr drive from Vegas) most of the summer once the vis starts dropping at Kingman wash (Lake Mead training site)

EDIT: Bring shade and LOTS of drinking water. Not uncommon to hit 110f-120f during the summer.

 

[scubashawn123]

How do I find the altitude values for the dive sites mentioned ?

Example:

1. Bull head City
2. Placer Cove
3. Willow beach State Park
4. Kingman Wash
5. Temple Bar
6. Hoover Dam
7. Manor Lake

 

[broncobowsher]

Wikipedia, handheld GPS, lake maps, and if all else fails Arizona Atlas & Gazetteer - DeLorme

 

[Carolyn Boettger]

Mark thread