Split Rock dive sites

[racer17m]

Im sure everyone here is familar with diving the Maderia at Split Rock and Im sure many of you have dove several of the other shore access sites along the north shore. Having gone to college in Duluth I grew fond of the North Shore Ive read several of the books written about diving along the shore but I never understood why no one ever really worked at developing the sites. We have all these state parks that have great diving potential (Crosby mines too) but the DNR seemed to be missing the boat (no pun intented) at adding these as features to their parks. I have spoked to the DNR and gotten their approval and support to work on developing dive sites with in the state parks. This will extend the scope of what the parks can offer. To start we are going to focus on Split Rock since GLSPS has already forged the ground and developed the Madira site. What I am setting out to do is dive and map out the other areas of the park and determine where we can establish designated access points and suggested dive routes to see the various interesting topography etc. My summer has gotten away from me with a home addition so I havent had time to dive split rock so I am reaching out to anyone interested in helping. We have a lot of shoreline to cover with in split rock a lot maybe difficult or not accessible, some areas might not be easily accessible but if we can prove its an area worth improving access too it may be worth it. the goal is to dive and map as much of the park as possible. Once we have the information gathered the Park will be able to offer the information to anyone interested in diving at the park. (once we have all the information we will also look at establishing formal dive maps and potentially signage with in the park). Split Rock is the stepping off point for this we will move on to the other parks such as gooseberry etc. So if anyone is interested in helping please let me know.

Thanks!

[popolarbear]

sure id donate some time, what were you thinking?

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very interesting. i was thinking same thing, just with lake minnetonka. problem with superior is its so cold. many of my dive pals dont like to dive it due to the cold water. it would have dive value only to those divers who are into cold water diving. even those pals of mine who do have drysuits and dont mind cold water, dont feel comfortable diving deep dives in drysuits. i myself will admit that my drysuit dives are different than wetsuit. i breath differently in a drysuit then a thin wetsuit. i cant come close to my slow air rates durring summer.

lake minnetonka on the other hand is warm water and close to the cities main population. i have 2 Maybe 3 spots in mind that are very clear in hottest greenest time of the summer. all have hard solid bottom. none are currently ready for public. but with work could be "made".
vis is around 20+at the lowest point during summer. warm enough for all divers. id like to see shore access. and boats and other interesting things dragged in to dive on.

[racer17m]

Valid point, though I would like to point out that water temps in Superior arent all that cold during the summer 50-60 degrees and most of the shore dives are not very deep. Im guessing the majority of the areas Im talking about are not likely to exceed 60' not to mention the clarity will be minnetonka any day and you wont be fighting boat traffic. In any case this is a starting point to partner with the DNR to develop sites and have them recognize and support diving in the areas they oversee, so whether anyone is interested in helping with the north shore state parks or if you have another location by all means map it out!


very interesting. i was thinking same thing, just with lake minnetonka. problem with superior is its so cold. many of my dive pals dont like to dive it due to the cold water. it would have dive value only to those divers who are into cold water diving. even those pals of mine who do have drysuits and dont mind cold water, dont feel comfortable diving deep dives in drysuits. i myself will admit that my drysuit dives are different than wetsuit. i breath differently in a drysuit then a thin wetsuit. i cant come close to my slow air rates durring summer.

lake minnetonka on the other hand is warm water and close to the cities main population. i have 2 Maybe 3 spots in mind that are very clear in hottest greenest time of the summer. all have hard solid bottom. none are currently ready for public. but with work could be "made".
vis is around 20+at the lowest point during summer. warm enough for all divers. id like to see shore access. and boats and other interesting things dragged in to dive on.
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[DetectorGuy]

I really like the concept, and know that it can be a major project if you let it. I have some ideas that could help you out, but I don't have the ability to commit to it this fall. Here is my 2 cents: Dive the crap out of the area and start by marking major pieces. If each diver had 2 or 3 'dog bone' buoys with them, they could deploy them on these major pieces (call these major pieces landmarks) sending the float to the surface and the lead weight sitting on or near the object. When the tanks are low, ascend and get in the boat, motor over each buoy and mark each landmark with GPS coordinates. Pull the buoys and mark more landmarks the same way. All of these landmarks should be heavy, non-movable, or notable items that can be the hub for a circular search later. Here is a rough link to some search patterns: With all the landmarks locked into GPS, a person can come back at any point in time and do a circular search centered on each of the landmarks, noting direction and distance from the landmark using a compass and fiberglass tape. Using a slate while underwater to record the bearing/distance could be useful in a target rich environment. Mark everything of interest until you run out of summer or ambition (which ever comes first). Then in the winter months (if you are not an ice diver) you can add these coordinates to the landmarks to Google Earth, and add info for each like depth, description, condition, ETC. Once you have all the push pins on Google Earth for all the major landmarks, You can use the Google Earth measure tool to get some pretty accurate measurements between the landmarks & from them to shore ETC. Once the major landmarks are on Google Earth, you take out your field notes from the dive slate info on the lesser targets showing bearing/distance from a landmark and transfer these to Google Earth using the bearings and measure tool again. Once you have all the items you want on your Google Earth map, you need to go a little redneck... Adjust the size of Google Earth image to have everything you want to show on your map to be just under the size of a 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper (landscape). Place a piece of paper over the computer screen and temporarily tape it to the screen. The light and image from the screen shine through the paper and allows you to trace the outline of the shoreline and place a small x over each of the push pins. Once you have everything traced on the 8 1/2" x 11" paper remove it from the screen, clean up the lines, add dimension lines between items, and label
items. That gets you a small map of the area that can be scanned in to a computer. The file can be transferred to a thumb drive, taken to Kinkos, and plotted out in a 3'x4' map. More detail can be then added to this bigger map. Then Ta-daaaa, your done with that site and you start over on another site.

We did a similar map using these exact methods for the dive sites on the North side of the Ore Be Gone pit in July and the first half of August. Here is a copy of that map:

by , on Flickr