St. James Pit

[Kirk]

If you haven’t been up to St. James Pit recently, you’ve been missing out.  The visibility is incredible (much nicer this time of year than in the spring, early summer, or mid summer).  At 90 feet you can look up and see the egg yoke image of the sun and the ripples of the waves above, and at 200 feet you don’t even need a light.  The water temp is dropping fast however.  I was noticeably colder this past weekend compared to two weeks ago up there (and I even had warmer surface interval air temps this past weekend).  For late summer / early autumn inland lake local diving, St. James Pit is by far the best we have (far better visibility this time of year than Crosby or Wazee).  There is nothing more fun than a 20-minute bottom time at 200 feet being pulled around by a scooter followed by 40 minutes of multilevel decompression circumnavigating an iron ore pit being towed by that machine.  Did that dive both on Saturday and on Sunday (once clockwise and once counter-clockwise – just to get different perspectives of the layout of the mine --- the topography of that mine is incredible).  I did those dives and a couple less intensive second dives at shallower depths.  I love getting out of the water with a huge smile on my face. 

Oh by the way that motel on the south side of town isn’t very nice, but at about $37 (including tax) a night, I can’t really complain.  Also the City of Aurora is building a new bicycle path around St. James Pit, much to the chagrin of the residents, mostly the ATV enthusiasts and snow machine pilots who are paying for it but can’t use it.  The people of Aurora are really nice -- Just let them know where the big fish are living… they appreciate that, especially the really poor people up there (whereas here in the Twin Cities a lot of sportsmen fish for fun, up on the range a lot of the folks really need that fish for food).  One more thing…  Rudy’s Bar makes a good club sandwich, and it comes with interesting, though sometimes rowdy, company.  - Kirk