Lake Ore-Be-Gone (Gilbert Pit) report

[jasondbaker]

<br>Lake Ore-Be-Gone is located just a few miles from Virginia, MN in the town of Gilbert.  Lake Ore-be-gone is the result of natural flooding of three iron ore mines: the Gilbert, the Schley, and the Pettit.<br><br>GP and I headed out to the lake on Sunday morning.  The drive from Minneapolis took a little over 3 hours.  We made arrangements with Rick at Tall Pine Scuba () ahead of time to stop by and review the dive site.<br><br>Rick was very generous with his time.  He went over maps of the Ore-be-gone site with us.  He even drove out to the site with us to give us a "hands-on" tour.  He did this on a Sunday when the shop is normally closed.  Rick and Tall Pine Scuba offer outstanding service.<br><br>Lake Ore-be-gone sports a beach area, a couple boat landings, portable restrooms, and an enclosed picnic shelter.  The shelter provided necessary shade from the sun while we geared up.<br><br>Our first dive was a deep dive.  We entered the water by the boat landings and gradually made our way down an underwater road.  The visibility was about 15' until we hit the thermocline around 19'.  Then the visibility cleared up to 20-30'.  It was extremely windy on Sunday and that hampered the surface visibility a bit.  We decended down the road until we hit 102 feet.  Water temp was 41.  Cold.  My hands were extremely numb.  We stayed down there a couple minutes and then turned around and gradually made our way back up the road to about 40 feet.  <br><br>We didn't see many fish during this dive.  All of the fish were small and were located along the sheer walls lining the lake.  Both of us were impressed by all the cracks and crevices in the walls.<br><br>We surfaced from the dive and took a 45 minute surface interval. <br><br>Our second dive took us along the edges of the swimming area into a shallow (30') bay.  We located a diving platform with an outboard on it.  We also ventured into an area that is known as a local cliff jumping spot.  GP found a cap and I found real treasure (okay, it was only a quarter).  Our dive profile was 20-30' for 55 minutes.  The visibility was 20-25 feet.<br><br>Lake Ore-be-gone is great dive site and should rank right up there with Crosby and Wazee for quarry divers.  Tall Pine Scuba delivers great service and you get to hear interesting stories during the air fills.  <br><br>We will be returning to Ore-be-gone in the future.