Perch Lake

[LKunze]

Dan G and I did a couple dives out at Perch today.  Viz was pretty decent down to about 45 feet.  It got murky at 50 feet.  Water temp was around 46 to 48 degrees on the surface and 39 at depth.  For the first dive we went out towards the middle of the lake and then turned East until we met up with the line running off of the scoop shovel.  For the second dive we headed North from the public access and the viz was pretty crappy over that way.  I think that the West side of the lake tends to be more affected from rain run-off.  All in all it was a nice day of diving though.

[jleech]

I did a nice long dive around Perch Lake today.  It took me a fairly relaxing 2 hrs 20 min to circle the lake at 15-40 ft.  Headed east around the lake, stopping by the platforms and boiler.  Vis was pretty good 20+ above 30 ft, but got down to "can't see hand in front of face" below about 40 ft.  Temperature was 47 degrees at 40 ft, and about 52 at 20 ft.  Had 2 loons swimming around me for a while which was pretty cool.  One of them was only a few ft away.  I spotted a turtle poking his head out of the sand of the far east side of the lake.  The only other life I saw were a couple of huge carp.  If you haven't seen the carp at Perch, it's worth a dive just to see how big they are.  This was the first time I've been on the north side of the lake and ran into the elusive row boat that was searched for several years ago at about 25 ft.  If I remember correctly there were also 2 different power boats along the way.

I wasn't sure quite how long it would take to swim all the way around, but it seemed like I was swimming forever!  I probably won't do that again, but I can say I've done it once

All in all a nice day for diving.  This was also the first time I've been to Perch since they took out the stairs.  I'll admit the stairs were about to fall apart, but I did miss them.  It seems like a long way from the parking lot along the road to the entry.

Hope others had a chance to dive this weekend!

Jeff