So what about Little Long Lake?

[Littlelats]

Well, here's the info on my dive at Little Long Lake. We arrived there around 11:00 in the morning, just as a group of divers from a local shop were finishing their check outs and departing. Beautiful sunny weather, little to no breeze and very warm air temps made gearing up a very pleasant experience. Except for the departing group, the lake was empty and very serene.

We headed out to the dive platform, and I'd say the visibility was only about 8 to 10 feet or so. We clearly spotted the bleach bottle, descended to the platform and visibility dropped down to about 4 feet -- I'm sure the check-out divers stirred up the muck around the platform a bit. We headed south from the platform, following the length of the lake and descended down to about 35 feet. Still no decent visibility (if anything, getting worse), so we swam a bit closer to shore, up to about 20 to 25 feet in depth. THere things improved a lot. A very visible thermocline hung around 25 feet. We got above that, the water warmed drastically, visibility improved to about 15 to 18 feet, and we started seeing a variety of fish. Lots of sunnies, a few pike, a very large pike out near the dive platform. Yes, a lot of silt, milfoil and muck, but as long as you watched your bouyancy, it was a very nice dive. We slowly made out way about halfway down the length of the diveable part of the lake, at which point we turned around and headed back. As we surfaced near the dock, we surprised a german shepard who was happily retreaving a frisbee from the water (a family had arrived while we were diving). The poor dog had no idea as to what to make of us.

All in all, it was a good dive. I saw more fish and snails than I though I would, visibility was better than I expected (above the thermocline) and the water temp was quite pleasant (though I was wearing a dry suit). I'd dive the lake again, just to poke around. I'd like to get down into the deeper holes to see what's there, if anything.

Mike