Lake Mendota, Madison

[ethanb]

We did the Habitat yesterday during the torrential downpour.  We were just getting into the water when it started raining, but we figured it wasn't much safer to be sitting in the boat than in the water, so we finished the dive.  The rain limited the visibility so much that we would've had to go back very slowly to avoid risking collision.  The sound of the rain hitting the water's surface really was an interesting touch - we could hear it throughout the dive and it'd get noticeably stronger and weaker.  This was Isaac's second dive in a tornado - while we were underwater, a friend who lives in Fitchburg called to tell me she saw a tornado touch down briefly in the marsh in front of her house.

Anyway, viz was excellent down to about 40 feet, though it was very dark once you get down to 30 ft.  With a light you could see about 10 ft, and it was possibility to see the glimmer of a buddy's light out to 20+ feet.  Once we got deeper, the visibility got much worse, at the speedboat it was probably only about 5 feet. 

By the time we'd finished our dive, it had stopped raining and the sun was coming out.