Anywhere thawed out yet?

[Chris H]

I'm not sure the Democrats and hippies will allow you in the Peoples Republic of Madison.   It might have to be a sneak dive.
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The City of Madison has granted me a special 3 hr political pardon pass to dive. However, they would not grant me a permit for any political "monkery"."Trey" Heiden and I will be there tonight around 4:45 if anyone wants to dive.
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Don't forget your 80% bottle...

[matt t.]

Any perceived decompression benefit of using a higher ppo2 at 30
feet with 80/20  is then given back  by the lowered ppo2 at 20 feet, not
to mention the fact that the presence of the inert gas in the  breathing
mixture defeats the purpose of using  oxygen in the first place ( see
the Physiology and  Medicine of Diving) .   The ppo2 of 80/20 at 20 feet
is 1.28, not much of an oxygen window, and at 10 feet it is 1.04 -
useless for deco. To make matters worse, you can not get  out from your
30 foot stop in an emergency ( not doing the other stops)  on  the 80/20
mix without really risking a type 2 hit. (G.I. III)

[Chris H]

I wanted #13

[matt t.]

My new years resolution was to try to better myself by being kinder to the less enlightened ;D.

[matt t.]

We started out the dive with my forgotten drysuit underwear and Trey's  torn glove (NOTE: watch out for the thorn bushes at the bottom of the hill on the right side). After breaking through the ice we descended into nice warm 35 degree water. There were the usual tires, bottles and cans, and a few fish, on the otherwise featureless bottom. After 15 minutes Trey's hand was a frozen claw, and I was starting to get cool so we called it and headed up the hill to the car. Summary: If you're local it may be o.k. to do a few times during the off months to stay wet. I would not travel far to dive there (more than 5 miles). YMMV  .

[Chris H]

I think I found out where the glove was leaking!  Man my hand was cold! :'(

The Musky and the big Carp were pretty cool...

My clumsiness is one reason I prefer to use the blue gloves.  They have a cloth shell in them, so although they would have most likely been holed by the thorn, there wouldn't have been catastrophic failure like these rubber gloves had.

[ScubaDo]

If the pumps aren't on, it does make for a boring dive.  When the pumps are on, it's ussually too crappy to dive anyway .  Has anyone tried the lake at the power plant in Portage?  I hear the fishing can be pretty good.  There was a record size Pacu caught in the lake.  I've got two in my fish tank that won't fit in a skillet ;D.

[ethanb]

I've usually enjoyed it when the pumps are on.  Water temps are usually 50-55 and viz is usually 10-15 feet.  It's not really a "swim around and look at the pretty fishies" dive, but more of a "see how long you can swim against the current before you over-breath your regulator, turn around and drift out, then do it again."  It's silly, but I've always enjoyed moving around the rocks in the tunnel and trying to take advantage of them to be shielded from the current.  There's also fun things you can do with your body and fin position to get more traction against the floor.  Playing with the flow can be a lot of fun (especially when you have no other dive options).  It's not something I'd drive a long way to do frequently, but once in a while it's fun.  I think I managed to go more than ten times in a winter once.  Now that I know better I go to FL or MO or the mines instead.

Ethan

[Chris H]

We didn't find any warm water, but there was definitely some current.

[FreediveWI]

If there's current there's some warm water coming out of the pipe- just don't expect a jaccuzi.

Diving it with a tank on is overkill. The entier area is so shallow that it's really not needed- unless your going up the pipe. We freedive up the pipe to where the tunnel splits and then swim down the other side to scare all the fish out. It's a blast whent here is a good current coming out to fly down the tunnel waving your arms and see how many musky and carp you can bring out with you.

If you go further out there are some sloping drop offs to about 35'- right under the wooden barrier the city puts up. I have never been dissapointed in finding a few anchors, fishing poles, fishing arrows, ect. Vis last time I was out was in the 30' range.

Not the most exciting dive around but with the Lender out for the winter it's easier than cutting a hole with a chainsaw everytime you want to jump in.

Another, easy, winter dive I used to do when I lived in Milwaukee was to dive Government pier or the mairinas looking for lost tools, sunglasses, wallets, ect. the peir is the best because you can walk out over a mile and just jump in fo a swim back to shore. If you get cold just swim up to one of the orange ladders and climb out! 8) It doesn't get much easier- unless the ice flows are blowing in and then you can just climb up on top of one and ride it into shore.

As far as diving Lake Columbia goes, there's NO vis in the lake. It's a nice place to kayak, jetski, or fish in the middle of winter but not some place you would want to dive- unless you were practicing zero-vis search patterns or something.

Jon