Diving Courtesy

[eelpout]

I haven't dove Square Lake in 8 years and I know it has changed a lot since then. I was attracted to this subject because it is a common experience (platform sharing) that I have faced over the last 24 years of teaching diving in the upper midwest.
I don't really know how many of the old timers browse through here. I see that one person has some background and knowledge of the platforms at Square Lake.

I was involved in installing 4 platforms at Square Lake. Initilally our objective was to have a place for our store to have our own platform to use. We did understand that we could not claim ownership of the platform because we never asked the county if we could put it in or not. Back in those days there was Vets Salvage Diving, Smith Diving, Club Scuba, and Scuba Center. We all knew each other and most of us had different areas we used for staging our classes. It was never a problem finding a platform to use. Back then there were only two platforms in the lake.

In the early 80's the scuba scene caught on. At one point there were over 10 dive stores in the Twin Cities. That led to more classes at Square Lake. That meant more platforms. Most of the new stores put their own platforms in to accomodate their needs. Some stores just used the platforms when they were vacant. I personally thought the training area was getting a little crowded so we put two more platforms in.

As I mentioned earlier , this is a common probem in lakes with platforms. It happens a lot at Lake Wazee too. The solution is simple, coordinate-communicate. If you see a group there before you, communicate and coordinate your use of the platforms.

The title of the subject was "Diving Courtesy", well titled, now lets practice it and quit the finger pointing and name calling because we all should be diving instead.