Dive sites on West Hawk Lake...
There's a bunch of great sites around the lake, but most are only accessable by boat. The points of interest are mostly wall, or near wall dives, lots of them deep (I've found sections of wall in Moonlight Bay to 150ft). For shore diving, there's two good sites and two that require some serious swimming.
Cat's *** - From the West Hawk Lake campground, Section A. People usually stage from the picnic shack, it's the most popular dive site in the province. Access is from the sand/rock point next to a funny cement arch (you can't miss it). The depth drops almost immediately down to 30-35 feet, where on a sandy bottom you'll find a training platform surrounded by various pieces of man-made junk (stair master, bank safe, paddle boat, sign post, ect). This is also the start of a classic West Hawk wall
dive, which heads out towards the south east from the point. This wall has a maximum depth of about 95 feet, easily obtainable within 10 minutes swim time. It is not a single, vertical wall, rather a series of sloping rock faces, 20-30 foot sheer cliffs with an irregular assortment of flat shelves. If one follows the wall to its deepest point, a swim out onto the featureless sand flats can yield a depth up to 110 feet, which is the deepest point of the crescent beach bay. A very interesting dive, if you're into geological formation. There's also the odd bass sitting along the ledges, and burbot at night.
Miller Beach - found at the opposite end of the West Hawk Campground from Cat's ***, between the small, namesake beach and tiny Peanut Island. This site starts some distance off shore, and requires a long swim to reach the points of interest. It is actually one of my favorite sites on the lake, so its well worth the effort. In order to start the dive, one must first locate the swim platford located in about 12 feet of water, some 100 feet off shore. Some take a compass bearing, but I usually surface swim using landmarks (keeping peanut island infront of me, and the park bench to my rear) until just past the southern point of the Miller Beach Bay (until you just see the rope swing). That's when a quick snorkel will usually locate the 10ft X 10ft swim platform, which is the usual start of the dive.... if you are in water deeper than 12 feet, you went too far...from this platform, a number of insulated wires lead deeper onto the featureless and seemingly endless sand flats. The most northern wire follows a shallower dive (20-45ft) past a sunken motor boat and a sunken waterski platform. From here you can choose to explore the reef (around the white bouy visible from the beach) or follow a line of sunken logs, past several other sunken boats, to a large training platform. This platford can also be reached in a direct fashion, by following the second most northernly wire from the starting platform. This large platford, is acutally a HUGE platford, the biggest I've seen. It has a picnic table sitting in one corner, and a septic tank "habitat" floating from ropes about 15 feet off the 35 foot deep bottom. One used to be able to fill the habitat with exhaled air, and ascend inside the bubble, but a crack in the tank no longer makes this possible. The habitat is anchored on the edge of a forbidding, vertical wall which signals the start of an excellent deep dive experience if one enjoys such things. The wall starts at around 40 feet, and is a sheer, exhilerating drop to the sand at 80ft. Once at the bottom of the wall, two routes are possible.
1) The first is a good recreational deep dive - keep the wall on your right, and swim for a short distance before the sand slopes up to about 50 feet, and another wire will lead back to the shallow swim platford.
2) The second dive is known as the "German Diver's Road to Pinion Island", and I'd recommend it only to those with nitrox and/or decompression training, as well as large capacity tanks. Keep the wall on your left, and follow the wall past the old TV, the "German Diver's" sign, and on the a wooden crate on the bottom. A line will lead off from the crate, across a silty, pockmarked mud flat. The line is broken, and soon ends, but a 5 min swim in the same general direction by compass or reel will put you on the slope up to Peanut Island - where you'll either have to do a surface interval (or decompression, as depth is around 95 feet of black, cold water above).
All choices at Miller are interesting and enjoyable...
There are two other possible shore dives I know of, both requiring considerable swims.
Peanut Island - the far (lake) side of Peanut Island, off Miller Beach. Much better as a boat dive, the swim around peanut island is a steep sloping wall-ish dive, with lots of boulders and debris from ice fishing on littering the bottom. Its gets deep FAST, and this keeps going - A 3 min swim takes you to 130, and it dosen't stop.... I have been told depth of 300ft is obtainable.
MacKenzie Beach - A long swim from the beach, almost to the mouth of the bay, will bring you to a spectacular wall dive. On the sheer cliff above the water line, a stairway from a cabin winds down the rock to a dock below. This dock is above the start of the dive - and about 90 feet to the bottom. This wall is exciting at ANY depth, the deepest part quite underhung, very deep (100ft) and VERY dark. This is not a beginner dive! One of the best dives on the lake!
There are a huge selection of other dives on the lake as well... see
http://www.manunderwater.com/dive_pac/westhawklake.html
for more info.
Dave
