Guy Alcala
Contributor
My understanding from when we dove there was that you're okay without a buoy if you're inside the mouth of the cove, i.e. roughly out to the 20' or so line. Other than that, I concur; Sand Harbor is a great place for OW classes, and boring as hell otherwise, unless you get your kicks reading the various messages spelled out with rocks on the bottom.
In addition to Sand Harbor, I've dived Rubicon Pt. Wall, which is sort of impressive, Patton Beach (Carnelian Bay) on the North shore (great if you like looking at tractor engines and dogs' old tennis balls), and IIRR Hurricane Bay [Edit: it was Sunnyside]. Compared to Monterey, all of them are boring diving -- as others have said, once you've seen your share of sand, logs, and crawdads you might as well get out and find something else to do. I've never dived the wrecks in Emerald Bay, but access to them is problematic for an M&G. You don't have to tow a float on the California side, so that would make a site on this side more attractive for an M&G. Here's a link to the sites shown in the book I was using:
http://www.sierradive.com/map.htm
I think Tahoe and any mountain lake is better for free-diving than it is for scuba. At least that way it takes you longer to get bored with the lack of things to see underwater, and every time you come up you get to enjoy the surface view. But I think May or June isn't the best time for Tahoe in any case. My dive club usually has a dive trip/Altitude class the weekend after Labor day, when the water's usually about as warm as it gets, the air temps are (usually) nice so lying about on the beach and having a picnic is terrific, and the crowds are gone. A M&G up there would have some diving in it, but you'd probably want to plan on including camping, hiking, biking, a barbecue and/or some other activity rather than making it exclusively a dive trip.
Guy
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