Moving to Madison from California.

[FreediveWI]

I've dove the kelp beds and the Ruby E. shortly after she was sunk. My favorite charter boat, although it's been a few years since I was out there last, was the Lois Ann. I understand that Larry and Lois have since sold it.

I've dove the La Jolla area quite a bit and did my Instructor training up in Sana Anna. Made it out to Catalina and Anacap a few times as well.

As far as temps in Lake Michigna goes, that depends upon hte time of year. Right now it's around 40 on hte bottom, but every August it will warm up to the high 60's. THat temp will get deeper as the winds blow from the east and the warm water builds up on this end of the lake. Last year it extended down to 110'. Other years it has gone as deep as 135- the bottom of the WISCONSIN.

Inside the break wall it will get into the mid 70's that time of year. When I lived in Milwaukee we would do lots of our openwater training dives out there- off of the Len-Der charter boat. It was a much nicer way to introduce new divers to the wonders of the underwater world- 75 degrees, hard sand bottom and 40' of vis! Compare that to the inland qaurries that time of year- with less than 5' of vis and it's an easy sell.

IF your moving to Madison you need to time your local diving. Right now, as in the next 1-2 months, the lakes are fairly clear- 10-25' of vis. However, once summer gets rolling along the lakes green up pretty bad. THe weeds come up so high they clog the rudder on my surf ski and make paddeling a real b**ch! THe water also gets black below 25' in July. In the fall she clears up again and the water stays warm through out October.

Devil's Lake is just to the north, but only 45' at it's max depth. There is a lake restoration project going on there right now that is cleaning the lake up quite a bit, over time. She is supposed to get back to 50' of vis in hte next couple of years.

Other wrecks on Lake Michigan will vary depending upon where you go in the lake. If you go south the wrecks are all pretty shallow- above 60'. If you go north things will get deep pretty quick- making for some excellent tec-diving. If your into tec charters you should check out Greg Such with Shipwreck Adventures. He runs the safest deep diving operation of any charter boat I have dove off of- and the only one I could recommend.

IF your heading south you should talk to Dave Manchester of the ENTERPRISE- the big red boat. He runs trips south of the state line.

In Milwaukee I am biased to the Len-Der, sorry there Dean but he is my father-in-law. From what I have seen Dean runs safe recreational charters and you could look him up as well- although I might be out of the will for saying that. ;D

Jon

[Vtach]

Wow Jon, I dove with them (Lois Ann)...hmmm...about 9-10 years or so ago. I dove the Ruby E and even bought a damn T-shirt that said "I Dove the Ruby E". ;D It was a real nice dive charter. We dove 3 dives, 1 wreck, 1 kelp forest, 1 reef. That was some pretty nice diving. I've got some pictures of the Lois Ann crew around here somewhere. Since I was from Wisconsin I spent some time talking with them about the ice diving that we had been doing during the winter. They seemed like pretty decent folk. I tell ya, they put on a decent food spread for just a day charter, fresh fruit, juice, water, sandwiches, you don't see that too often. I have to give Jerry some credit though, the goldfish and pretzels are top notch. ;D Sorry to hijack the thread, couldn't resist.

Todd

[John H. Moore]

The Lois Ann still operates... under new(ish) ownership. Larry and Lois retired to Bahia de los Angeles in Baja (and amazingly gorgeous, very remote place on the Sea of Cortez). They still do their famous cookies, though.

The Ruby E is now the old, small wreck. A couple years ago a 366 ft Canadian destroyer was intentionally sunk as a dive site. Except that she sunk herself in the middle of the night before there was supposed to be a big ceremonial sinking! You can see pics of the ship and view video of the accidental sinking on

John

[FreediveWI]

I just had to throw my Ruby E. t-shirt out because it finally fell apart.

It sounds like we did the same diving. 3 dives a day plus breakfast, lunch and homemade cookies, by Lois herself, all for $65- and that included tanks and weights!

I should dig out some of my photos as well. It's amazing how slatwater wrecks fall apart over time. WhenI first dove the Catalina Marine park we could penetrate into the Sou Jac. The last time I was there, 10 years ago, it was just a single piece of cement with a hole in it. I remeber diving the Prince Valient as well, but I bet there's not much left to that one either.

Another great boat that I was on, 20 years ago, was the Atlantis, out of San Pedro. I remember getting up from a night dive and having the captain, Tony, ask my how I wanted my steak done! He had two big Weber grills going on the back deck and was grilling up steaks for everyone. 8)

Jon

[Vtach]

I dug out some of those pics. I do not have a scanner so I took pictures of the pictures. ;D Any of these faces look familiar?

[Vtach]

Another.........

[Vtach]

Another..........

[Vtach]

Heres the Lois Ann getting ready to roll....

[John H. Moore]

Bottom picture: Lois Cochran
2nd from the bottom: guy on the right is Larry Cochran... other guys look familiar, but... ???

John

[FreediveWI]

I seem to be having a problem posting my pictures. I'll try to resize them to post.

Here's a shot of the reef off of Casa Cove- the Children's Pool. There are alway seals lying about on the beach and some nice shallow diving right off of there.

Jon