West Michigan Piers

[Saint_Thomas]

FYI,

There is no private beach on Lake Michigan.

All beach is public property up to the "high water mark", and is almost impossible to define.

Really, check it out.

Alot of property owners try to "bluff" you off the beach front, but don't let those creeps give you a hard time.

I think I will start a thread on this right now.

Tom

 

[Scoobers]

So after a year of acquiring more dives and experiences in different types of diving I decided to give the Muskegon pier a shot. I have since found a regular dive buddy who is a good diver. Let me start by saying that diving the pier is no easy feat. We decided to dive along the south pier and entered the water right at the beach. We swam out to about 6ft of water before descending to the sandy bottom. The waves were in the 2-4ft range. As we swam out you could really feel the current. Once we settled in and started swimming in and out of the rocks we decided to go all the way to the end of the pier and then turn back. First let me say that probably wasn't the best idea based on the current. Once we rounded the end of the pier we didn't waste anytime turning back because we knew it was a long swim. We swam back about 100yrds or so and decided to surface right along the edge of the pier to check our position and I was at about 1000psi left in my AL80. Once we surfaced we realized how bad the current truly was and knew we were in for a long hard swim. We decided to drop back down to about 10ft or so and I was going to breathe my tank down to about 500psi and then switch to an AL40 slung on my side. We made it back and it was one very long and hard swim. It was a good time, the vis was about 5-10ft. We saw lots of fish along with trillions of gobies. The rocks made for an interesting dive because we actually had something to investigate. I think next time we will wait for a calmer day to help avoid some of the current.

 

[superstar]

If you dve on the leward pier the current is not usually a problem if the wind is light. Diving the south pier with a south wind the surface current packs up on the wall and the current flows out. I usually dive the north side when the wind is from the south. To get to the north side you go to the state park and you have a bit of a walk to the pier from the parking lot. A better way to dive the pier is to hook up with me and we drive the boat right to the pier.