Recent Lake Pleasant conditions/reports

[stnichols]

I went out yesterday with the Scubateers to photograph a class from the City of Peoria's Youth Marine Science group.
We went to Pipe Line Cove. After being able to get all the kids finally geared up and in the water we proceeded to head down. Despite warnings of staying off the bottom so not to kick up the silt it looked more like a depth charge attack as the kids hit the bottom. The 20-30' of vis we had enjoyed earlier was gone in a heart beat. Skills were done and we did a quick tour of the area. I think they may have learned one very important lesson doing that. Don't follow the photographer. We are generally lousy navigators and are lost half the time. After a decent surface swim back to the boat I think they learned.
Dive number two was better. For the most part they stayed off the bottom until the found an old camp chair and had fun fooling around with it. Trying to get everyone into a group shot was pretty much like trying to herd cats. Oh well, an excuse for me to drink more.
The vis we have been enjoying for quite some time seems to be going as it starts to get hot. All in all a great day

 

[glcoley]

Diving Lake Pleasant-Vista Point with my wife/buddy for the first time this weekend.
Any pre-dive briefing or site profile advice would be appreciated.

 

[phatso-29]

Bring a 7mm full suit, and heavy gloves (unless your used to cold water diving), reef gloves are OK, but again it depends on your comfort level. Drysuit will keep you nice and toasty (if you have one). Expect a walk into the water the shore can be rocky in spots, usually though it isn't bad. Bring a light just in case, right now the visibility is great and you shouldn't need one but you never know. Bring all you tanks that you are going to want to dive topped off. I am not sure where the nearest fill is other then the Sport Chalet? Aside from the shore diving there is Scubateers, a dive boat that operates on the Lake that offers a change from the usual.

 

[glcoley]

Bring a 7mm full suit, and heavy gloves (unless your used to cold water diving), reef gloves are OK, but again it depends on your comfort level. Drysuit will keep you nice and toasty (if you have one). Expect a walk into the water the shore can be rocky in spots, usually though it isn't bad. Bring a light just in case, right now the visibility is great and you shouldn't need one but you never know. Bring all you tanks that you are going to want to dive topped off. I am not sure where the nearest fill is other then the Sport Chalet? Aside from the shore diving there is Scubateers, a dive boat that operates on the Lake that offers a change from the usual.

Thanks, for the response and advice,
my wife/buddy gets cold faster than I do, so we'll probably dive dry suits (we dive wet and dry suits, cold & warm water, fresh & salt water), I have 4 cylinders ready to go for 2 dives and then an exit before the boating crowd over runs the lake

 

[scubajcf]

Did two dives last night (Thursday 23 April) at Vista Point. Good news/bad news. The water is warming up. Unfortunately, a thermocline has developed around 45 feet. Thus, the warmer water above the thermocline is beginning to cloud up?

Visibility above the thermocline is about 20 feet. Still good, but definitely worse than just last weekend. Visibility below the thermocline is better (maybe 30 to 40 feet), however it is darker down there.

Still great diving. Lots of bass in the water. In about 15 feet of water, we saw an amazing amount of small fish.

Our first dive was down the boat channel rail. The first group hit about 100 feet. The second group hit about 85 feet. Our second dive we headed westerly from the picnic table, maxing out at about 54 feet.

More great spring diving. WeÃÍl be out there again this weekend.
Look forward to diving with you soon.

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Night Diving Report - 23 April 2009 | Academy of Scuba



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[scubajcf]

We did and Open Water Class and Advanced Buoyancy Class on Saturday and Sunday out at Lake Pleasant. In addition to our students, we had a lot of friends and family come out to join us for a great weekend. On Sunday, between with all the different groups, we probably had 30 people in the water. It was really nice to see everyone.

We dove Vista Point over by the Picnic Table. Saturday, we had a little wind in the late morning / early afternoon which really picked up the chop and screwed up the shallow visibility. On Sunday, we had a lot of debris float in close to shore and provided a dark canopy in which to dive under in the shallow water.

Between 15' and 60', the visibility was 20 feet +/-. There is a noticeable thermocline right around 46 feet and while the visibility is better below the thermocline, it is significantly darker. Temperature above the thermocline was about 63 Oceanic Degrees. It was between 5 and 10 degrees cooler below the thermocline depending on depth.

Lake Pleasant is still really good diving! As the weather gets warmer, we expect te visibility to continue decreasing. See you out there soon.

http://academyofscuba.com/blog/2009/04/27/lake-pleasant-dive-report-2526-april-2009/

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[AZ Desert Diver]

The days of over 25'ft of viz are gone! I did some checkout dives over the past two days and the viz is right at 20'ft, with a temp of 63deg. Here comes the summer diving conditions at LP.

 

[ScubaSteve2000]

Rudebob (Mike) and his son Hunter met me at VP this morning. It was scuba class central. There were OW, AOW and Rescue classes going on. The weeks of great vis are definately behind us. Vis was about 15 feet from the surface to about 45 feet where we hit the first thermocline. Vis cleared up considerably to 20+ fet between 45 and about 75 feet deep. Then it clouded up again below 75 feet. We needed dive lights below 75 feet.

On the first dive we decended down the close wall to about 65 feet and followed it over to the boat ramp. We followed the rail down to about 100 feet. At that depth there were pockets of clear water but it mostly was 5 to 10 feet of vis. We didn't see very many fish. We did a mid level safety stop at the wall for a few minutes then followed the bottom contour back. We could really feel the temperature change as we swam up through the thermoclines. Especially the last one during our 20 foot safety stop. Almost toasty. I didn't get a temperature reading at the surface but I think it was very near 68 to 70 degrees. At depth my computer registered 57 degrees.

On our second dive we went out to the far wall. Hit about 110 feet before my computer started to protest and blink at me. We turned and crested the wall at about 80 feet where we woke up a small catfish. On our way back we found a bunch of little blue fish hanging out in and among some loose rocks. I'll have to look up what they are.

We hugged the shoreling at about 20 feet for the last 10 minutes or so of the dive. We came across a very aggressive bass. It must have been the one that tried to eat Mike a few weeks ago. It snapped at my glove finger a couple of times.

So the vis sucks now until next year. The temp at depth is in the upper 50's but much warmer at the surface. The fish are biting...literally. There was a severe wood chip laced flotsam near the shore. So thick that it blocked out the sun at 10 feet. And little swimmers are starting to show themselves.

All in all a greqt dive day with good friends.

And CONGRATS to all the new open water divers; advanced open water divers; and rescue divers we saw in classes today.

Steve.

 

[Partz]

Vista Point 12 MAY 2009
Vis/Temp 10'/72deg @ 20 ft, Below 60ft 35+/60deg, Below 75ft 45+/55deg

 

[PhxSki]

Dove Biesmeyer Point with Steve (Scubasteve 2000) and Steve (Stevejaz) on Saturday morning (04/16/09). Boy, what a difference a couple of weeks makes.

Visibility above 50' simply stunk. At depth, it was just alittle better. Boat traffic was extremely heavy. No question, the dog days of summer diving at Lake Pleasant are here.

Regards, Bill