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Maka · 09-05-2005, 08:19 AM,

We've checked it out, the small road that leads down to that part has been blocked of by boulders, Youd pretty much have to walk down with your gear, we walked about 100 yds or so and the road kept on going. I'd guess it is at least 200-300 yd walk. Once you're down there, I belive you'd have access to both Miller and St. James.

LKunze · (This post was last modified: 10-31-2005, 02:36 PM by LKunze.)

Â A group of us dove St. James and Miller Pits on Saturday.Â There is a path that leads down to the access.Â The pits are separated by only 10 feet or so.Â You have Miller on one side and St. James on the other.Â The path is a bit of a haul with your gear on but an easier hike than the Madeira path in my opinion. This access for St. James didn't have a wall like the public boat access site has.Â It's more of a gradual decline down to the 100+ foot range.Â There wasn't much to see.Â There were more trees over at this site though.Â Some of them were uprooted and laying down.Â Some of the trees were very tall.Â I prefer the public boat access site though with the wall to this site.Â Viz was good though.Â It was easily 40+ feet in many spots.Â There was a cloudy layer in some spots in the 50-60 foot range but it was kinda spotty and not consistent.Â
Â After our dive in St. James we decided to give Miller Pit a try on the other side.Â Big mistake.Â This pit had horrible viz.Â It was probably 15 feet viz if you were in 15 feet of water but once you got down past 20 feet or so it was like being in a blizzard.Â It was so damn milky you could barely see your hand in front of your face.Â We tried to see if it might clear up at depth but gave up after feeling our way down the slope slowly to 51 feet with no clearing in site.Â Needless to say I don't think I'll be diving Miller again but St. James still has the best viz I've seen in any pit within reasonable driving distance of the twin cities.

flyboy65 · 10-31-2005, 03:03 PM,

Well, Lon, thanks for doing all the walking for me! Too bad...who knows WHAT may be lurking in the bottom of THAT one! LOL!

LKunze · 04-23-2006, 08:27 PM,

Dove St. James today. Viz was down quite a bit but it was still alright, I'd say similar to Wazee last weekend...maybe 20ft+. The recent rain likely had something to do with it. Water temp was 45F at the surface and 39F at depth.

Maka · 04-23-2006, 10:15 PM,

Some pictures of St. James.

flyboy65 · 04-24-2006, 02:49 PM,

Yup, looks like St. James. It's a pretty fun dive!

Maka · 08-04-2006, 09:36 PM,

St. James was excelent as always. We did our 3rd dive there. Even though it was pretty cloudy, the vis was was still pretty awesome.

Maka · 08-27-2006, 10:58 PM,

We did a couple of dives at St. James today. The vis was by far the best I've ever seen in a MN lake. We did our second dive by the yellow pontoon, there are some cool features and nice wall sections in that area.

Our third dive we did at Lake Mine. Vis was was good as always. We ran into flyboy65 and his friend Kevin, nice to meet and chat with you guys.

flyboy65 · 08-28-2006, 04:49 PM,

Thanks, Matt, for the info on St. James. We'll be checkin' out that wall to the west next time we're there!

Very good day of diving for us. Went up to Ely, and dove the minepit just north of town. Hit some black murky layer at about 50'. Turned parallel to that, since I'm not much into that kind of stuff without a light. Lot's of garbage along the slope. One area had probably close to a hundred rubber boots that had been dumped...I could get someone a GREAT deal on rubbers ;D.

We drove around the area looking for what I've heard called the rock crusher. From what I've been told secondhand, it was some underground mining operation that just couldn't keep up with the groundwater coming in. The surface area of the "mine" is about the size of a house footprint. But a co-workers father in law has been on it in the winter, and says he can see the machinery through the clear ice. Sounded like fun, but the road we were told to go down was gated and posted. So we headed off to St. James, and then over to Lake Mine by Giants Ridge, where we met up with MAKA and his dive buddy...(forgot yer name...sorry).

On our drive home, I did comment on how we divers around here in Duluth really do take some of the great diving we have right out our back door for granted. These guys were from the cities, and had at least a 4 hour drive back home. If I were independently wealthy, I'd live halfway between Lake Superior and the Iron Range. (Don't think there's a whole lotta work in Isabella, MN).

Heading up to Isle Royale Wed night, with Jay from Lake Superior Divers, on the Wreckreation for three dives...the America, for sure, and the other two start with a "c". One is just the engine...Cox? I'm not sure. They're all on the south end of the island. Will post more on that later.

Matt, thanks again for the conversation and tips. Hope to bump into you and others from here sometime this summer. Hey Lon, lets hit St. James before the ice sets in!!

LKunze · 08-28-2006, 06:35 PM,

I plan on it. I wish Jason and I had gone up there this past weekend instead of to Wazee. Viz wasn't too good there and the extra hour drive would have been worth it to go to St. James and Lake Mine. I'll probably get up there again either late September or early October. I'll be up at the Madeira and Hesper in a couple weeks Sept. 8-10.