Diving near Hot Springs, AR?

[spthomas]

Hi. I'm going to Hot Springs on vacation next week. Anyone have a favorite dive spot or dive shop in that area? I'd like to get wet if I can.

Also, just in general, is there some way I'm missing to find dive information about a location? I figured here was a good place, but is there somewhere better for me to look?

=Steve=

 

[ouachita]

The best diving in Arkansas is on Lake Ouachita just to the west of Hot Springs. Try Mountain Harbor Marina and Brady Mountain Marina for air fills, boat rentals, gear rental etc...

Some good links for phone numbers are www.lakeouachita.com and www.ricksdivecenter.com.

Ricks offers dive boat trips on most saturdays. If you like to spearfish now is the time to do it. There is excellent catfish spearing and bass but watch the slot limit on bass.

There are some incredible wall dives and the vis is pretty good below 30', better take at least a 5 mil and hood though for below @ 25'. It is a beautiful lake and a great place to spend some time on the water. If you don't make it there you are really missing out.

If you need more info on the lake or Hot Springs in general just let me know. Have fun, it's a pretty neat place.

 

[bobafett21]

I agree, some of the best diving in Arkansas is on Lake Ouachita around the Brady Mountain area. I completed both my open water and advanced open water certification in the same area; it is very diverse.

Around Crawdad Island, there are some terrific wall dives down to 100'. During advanced certification, we dove down to 100' with a visibility of about 25' and it was incredible.