Today I provided shore support for several divers from the Michigan Underwater Divers club, called Muddies, as they dove the South St. Joe pier in Lake Michigan today.
Todays lake was calm with little wind and water surge action but the sun was shining and best of all, there was no packed ice or floating burgs! It was a long walk from the parking lot to the beach where lake entry was made. With the water surge action, the divers had problems staying down in the shallows, so a surface swim was made out to where it got to around 9 feet deep. Visibility at that area was around a foot and the average water temperature around 35ºF. Those in the water swam out on a braille dive following the sand and concrete sea wall line with visibility at times going down to just inches. Further down the pier it was noted that when swimming close to the break wall the visibility increased to between 10 and 13 feet. This made the dive much more enjoyable and safer. All the divers were wearing dry suit, and several had either battery powered heated gloves, vests, and or socks. With that said the diver with no heater units was in 20 minutes before an arm sleeve leak and blown heater fuse dampened his enthusiasm for continuing the dive and he exited. He was also on open circuit (scuba) with doubles (twin tanks). You have got to be young and in shape to manhandle that gear and the long walk back to the parking area. The last two divers were using closed circuit (rebreather) units. About 30 minutes in the dive another one developed a suit leak and the terminated their dive. The last diver out said he was comfortable with just a little dampness. Several brought back found golf balls which made it an official club dive.