What to do with the viz?

So last week was our first Tuesday Night Adventure dive. Having gotten up at 4:15 am in order to be on TV (wow!!! see our home page) promoting the Monona Terrace clean-up dive (have you signed up yet?) on June 2nd, I was a bit tired but hopeful that the viz would be better than the morning dive. We had the 1 foot of viz that increased to maybe 6 feet when the sun came up at 5:30 am. By the time we were done at 7 am, there was at times 6 feet of viz. Naturally I anticipated a bit better viz as the evening dive spot, on the west side of Monona Terrace, drops off right away to between 20 and 30 feet with few weeds and a silt bottom. Only the carp stir that up.

No luck on that anticipation. As we discussed in our dive plan, we were going to go 50 feet from shore, get a nav fix on Monona Terrace and just drop down to see what we could see what we could see, then move towards Monona Terrace. 3 feet down and the water was full of suspended particles, 6 feet down and it was dark. After not seeing each other, we all surfaced to discuss the adjustments in the plan.

So what can you do? Say the viz sucks, so we’re out of here! I suppose you can do that but man, I’ve got 2800 psi, all hooded, gloved and 7 milled up and want to dive.

With lights on, using good buddy practices, you go for it. Go slow, check for your buddy more often than you might usually do, and respect that anyone can call off the dive or call going up for the group when they want to.

72 at the surface, thermocline at 20 feet down to 60 degrees and the bottom at 30 feet. Maybe 6 feet of viz with lights, totally black with out. Not bad. Cruise around. Not many fish alive. A surprising amount of perch and bluegill dead on the bottom. Cans and other trash on the bottom also. Argh, every dive is a clean-up dive.

Coming toward shore we found a number of bluegill and small crappies near some old structure.

Having a light and good buddy practices saved our dive that night. I hope Monona clears by the Clean-up Dive in a week. I am looking forward to next Tuesday Night’s dive at Shorewood. We had 20 feet of viz there for checkout dives last weekend. Have you signed up for that one?

See you next Tuesday night, Shorewood, John C. McKenna Park dive site at 6 pm!