"Scout" and I decided to check out Crater Lake in western NJ today. Crater Lake is at about 1400 foot elevation in the Kittany range, outside of Millbrook Village. It’s part of the national park service. Beyond that, a mystery. This was to be a scouting expedition to see if this would be good site for a larger outing.
We met at my office at 8 and loaded my stuff into Scout’s car. We got to Crater Lake at about 9 o’clock or so. It’s a nice place; a large lake, some picnic tables, bear-proof trash bins, porta-potties what more could a diver want.
We unload and gear up, finally wading in at about 10:15. Dive One lasted just over an hour. That was the good news. As Scout quipped, it was a singularly dull dive. It seems that Crater Lake is basically 15 feet deep (I surfaced with 1000 psi still in my tank), water is incredibly murky (5 foot viz if you are lucky), splattered with rock piles. We both decided that there was no point in a Dive Two; we had basically criss-crossed most of the lake. Saw nothing other than a few abandoned golf balls.
so all is not lost; we get back to civilization by mid-afternoon and I’m actually able to get a half day’s work in. All in all, it was worth burning a half a vacation day.
dive on.