Square Lake in November

[SCUBA Dog]

Dove Square Lake today. Viz was 6-8 feet and water temp was 45. The water actually felt pretty good given the 32 degree air temp and strong wind out of the northwest. Ice diving is right around the corner.

[Hydro]

i would dare to say almost 15 ft vis in spots before it got dark

[DetectorGuy]

Thanks Grumpie!
Grumpie led Hydro and I to Square lake today for two daytime dives and one night dive toward our AOW cert. The wind was brisk but the water was "warm". Now that I think about it... the mosquito's weren't too bad either. The ice was forming on the dry suit after the night dive. I saw the tail of the airplane for the first time and I envisioned it to be bigger. After the 5 odd hours wearing a back (shoulder) zip dry suit, I am wondering if I should have bought a front zip. Keeping the gloves near the heater between dives would have made my hands happier. what was I thinking? I had another dry pair of gauntlet style gloves and these helped a bit.

[SCUBA Dog]

We were out early and on the park side. Mostly overcast and not much sun, but a bit more light than your night dive. Congrtas on yur prgress toward AOW. Hats off on completing three dives today. I could have made a second, but would not have wanted to do a third.

[DetectorGuy]

Thanks man, We are going to get one Search/Recovery dive in today at Hidden Falls, Mississippi River and one Zero Visibility dive in Wirth Lake today too.  8)

[SCUBA Dog]

Good luck on your dives. Have fun!

[DetectorGuy]

I know this thread is about Square Lake but I am tailing off on this AOW weekend... We ended up doing 2 search pattern dives in the Mississippi River instead of one here and one at Wirth Lake. I have never dove in the river before. If I had to choose whether to dive in a lake or the river, I would choose the river. It was that cool! The bottom was rocky and gravel and not muck like I assumed that it would be. The current was not that bad (3 knots on the surface less on the bottom). We got out into the main channel a couple times each and we found plenty of useless treasure. Joe found a nice Mushroom anchor and 3 or 4 golf balls. I found one golf ball and 7 lures. We also found a couple tires on rims and an anchor bag. There were a few eating sized crayfish and some minnows. Visibility was about 3-4 feet air temp was 29 and water temp was 39. The snow had quit by the time we got to the site. I really really liked diving here. If anyone wants to look for stuff in the river call me and I will drop what I have going on and head that way.

[Dano]

I am curious how AOW dives go in a river. A 3 knot current sounds similar to drift diving in Cozumel. Hard to swim against. Were you harnessed in anyway? And what agency offers "Low vis diving" as one of your dives?

Dano

[Hydro]

NAUI, yes we were tethered with a backup diver on a second line, in the main channel it was quite a workout, but the vis was enough to spot rocks to help stabilize... this is off the naui website for AOW requirements (six open water dives including three separate dives for navigation, night or low visibility diving and deep diving (130 feet/40 meters maximum depth), plus three different dives.):

    * Search and recovery

    * Boat diving

    * Light salvage

    * Hunting and collecting

    * Exploration and underwater mapping

    * Wreck diving (non-penetration)

    * Observation and data collection

    * Diving in surf or currents

    * Altitude diving

    * Salt water diving (in areas where most diving is in fresh water)

    * Fresh water diving (in areas where most diving is in salt water)

    * Shore diving

    * Diving for photos or video

    * Using dive computers

[DetectorGuy]

We are doing our AOW through NAUI. They require 6 divescorrect me if I am wrong) one night dive, one low visibility dive, one deep dive, one navigation dive, and 2 misc elective dives. The two river dives were tethered dives using a harness, rope and a tender. One diver in the water and one suited up on shore. The current was about 3 knots but just on the surface. It was suprisingly easy to manuever upstream along the bottom using rocks to pull your self along. (kinda reminded me of rock climbing as I was looking for the next hand-hold prior to leaving the "current" (pun intended) hand hold. As far as the elective dives, I have heard of people doing "Buoyancy", "Photography", "Lift bag", and "Species recognition" to name a few. AOW is supposed to enhance the way you dive or the way you plan to dive in the near future, so I can see why they leave a couple options.

Note: I started this reply in the morning and didnt hit the send button until after Hydro replied, so the info that Hydro submitted is more accurate (I was just basically going off my shoddy memory).