The Argonauts John or Jean Francois ???????

[DetectorGuy]

These days getting info from the dive shop is like stopping at a gas station during a road trip to ask for directions. Sure it still works, but it is a thing of the past. Its like reading a newspaper... Yesterdays news. I like the local dive shop in theory, but they are coming from a different mindset than me. Dive shops today are all about new divers and selling new gear. They promote the clear water to instill confidence in these new divers. The dive shops wouldn't promote the lakes with less than stellar visibility because they want these new divers to enjoy themselves by not having to deal with the challenges of murky water. The happier they can keep these new divers... the more new gear they can sell them in a short time frame. If the new divers get told that this XYZ lake has 4'-5' viz, but has really cool things to see on the bottom, The new divers may get the heebie jeebies and not dive in the local lakes or not dive anymore. The newer technology of digital cameras hasn't helped this promotion of clearer lakes. Seems like everyone with a set of flippers has an underwater digital camera, and taking good photos in poor viz is challenging. So the dive shops continue to lead these newbie lemmings to the cliff called Square or Perch or somewhere in the Carribbean where the water is 15' plus visibility for financial reasons.

I am kind of a newbie myself with only 197 dives under my weight belt, so take this for what its worth. I think its not how far you can see, but what you can see when you get there. I suppose if I was more of a world traveler I would be spoiled by the gin clear water. Looking at it from the other end of the spectrum, if you have dove in the zero visibility with gnarly entanglements, everything else like 3' viz looks pretty good. Besides its the lower viz that keeps most divers out of most lakes, and more things to see for more people like me.

John