Southwest Scuba - Lake Pleasant

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Dive Sites

Arizona

Lake Pleasant

Written by Administrator

Sunday, 15 October 2006

This can be one of the best fresh water scuba diving sites!

One of the top spots to dive in Arizona.

Lake Pleasant

It's in a central location (Peoria, just NW of Phoenix), easily accessible from around the state. It's close to full level from Spring until mid-Summer. Then the lake level starts to drop off. It's pretty cool because you get to see areas you scuba dive no longer submerged. You can also plan future dives on the contour you see when the water level is down.

It's decent visibility, for a lake. So far we've been diving in Scorpion Bay,

Scorpion Bay

at the end of Desert Tortoise Rd.,

Desert Tortoise Rd.

Dirty Shirt (South Park Rd.), and the coves next to the 10-lane boat ramp. There is a small boat launch at Desert Tortoise and Dirty Shirt, but they are not used very much during the week, and they become roads when the level is down. The marina is on the other side of the lake. There are occasionally people swimming in all of these areas. Sometimes there will be boats or ski jets, but they are all no wake zones, and we've only seen the occasional non-compliance.

According to a volunteer at the park, Lake Pleasant tends to stay close to full throughout the spring and early part of summer. During our three years of diving here, we've pretty much confirmed this. They pump millions of gallons of water through the Old Waddell Dam every day. This keeps the water somewhat filtered, allowing for better visibility than at the smaller lakes. Some people will tell you the visibility is better in the winter than in the summer, but we haven't seen any real pattern to the amount of visibility we get. It varies, but it doesn't have anything to do with the water temperature.

Catfish

Underwater vegetation

Carp?

Interesting things in the lake

The current dam, Old Waddell Dam, is an earth dam. The previous one was concrete and is still intact about 80 feet under when the lake is full. With a boat this dam can easily be visited. In fact, we did a couple of dives at the Old Waddell Dam at the end of October 2006 (see our dive report). Be careful in this area, though. The lake gets to a depth of 260 feet here when at full level.

Check out the following chart for water temps at the lake since mid-2005: