the habitat, lake mendota

[schultz]

What do you want to know about it?

The Habitat was a research facility the the UW-Madison Limnology department anchored at the bottom of lake Mendota back in the mid 70's. It was build out of a huge wine fermenter that one of the UW professor's couldn't use since it held something like 700 gallons. As a home wine maker, Federal law prohibited his making anything over 200 gallons.

To make a long story short, the Limnology department took it off his hands, and they converted it to something like the lunar lander from the Apollo missions. They used it for studying fish populations as well as early diving physiology.

If you want coordinates for it you might want to check .

Unfortunately you cannot drive there. The university used to issue driving permits to the tip of Picnic Point, but they stopped that about four years ago when someone complained about vehicles going out there. I was the last person to ever drive out there with dive equipment.

It was about four years ago was when we attempted an ice dive out there with members of Hoofer SCUBA and Four Lakes SCUBA. It was NASTY cold that year (19 degrees below zero) and the ice was about 26 inches thick... unfortunately my chainsaw was only 24 inches...

Long story short, we got through the ice, but with the cold air, the dives were short since EVERYONE freeflowed (you name the reg, it flowed).

If you want a map of the divesite, check out the .

Hope this helps!