motorcitydiver:
I'm picking up some new gear today and I need a place to check it out. I normally dive St. Claire River and Lake Huron but I want someplace without current. I live in Oakland County and would like to keep it close. I'd be willing to travel to Macomb or Livingston.
I live only a few miles from Union Lake and there seems to be a lot of discussion about it. I've seen divers there in the past so I guess this must be a descent place to dive. Does anyone have any other suggestions? I'd appreciate any suggestions.
Union is probably the better choice if you would like to actually be able to "see" anything. We're out there everey Tuesday evening and even more often this time of year. Once charters start up, that decreases.
Currently we're running lines and moving boats (w/liftbags--there are several sunk in the lake--we just found one Saturday am. dive out in the middle of the lake...accessed it w/long body scooters in about 90ffw and about 2500' out from the DNR boat launch at the NW corner of Union) just to keep it interesting.
Springmill used to be halfway decent for a training site, but the viz there is just consistently terrible...5' or less. 15 years ago though, it was always 20' or greater. Not sure exactly what happened, but I try to avoid SMP.
Orchard isn't too bad except it's quite a distance from the shore at the DNR boat lauch , to get any depth past 10 or 12 ffw. And once the boaters hit the water, that site doesn't really allow for safe diver access.
Fenton used to be a fun dive, but since the condos went in, there really isn't any shore access for divers.
Maceday can be fun, but to use the entry from the Northwest area of the lake, there is a small parking area that is gated/locked and controlled by DNR and they aren't always happy to share w/us since the beleive that because we have to cross the street to access the water, we could be run over. BUT if you do manage to park there outside of the gate, there is a bit of a steep hill to traverse, then you can enter the water. There it drops down to 100' ish and there's a sunken speedboat as well as lines to various other objects and another small rowboat....we did run a line to the other side of the lake from there....basically stays at 90-110 ffw for about 2500'. But viz there can be quite nice...50' and greater.
Good luck!
Best,
Brandon
