How he did it? I do not know. But Karl somehow talked Jim & I into joining him at Square Lake for a drysuit dive or two. The excuse? There were actually two. First to close down the site and pull the buoys for the season. Plus, it would be a good opportunity to keep our “dry suit” skills up to speed just in case. I agreed with the logic. So, Jim and I acquiesced and headed out for the afternoon even though there’s nothing to see or do in Square Lake that I haven’t already seen or done. Square_Lake_Platform_1 But I digress…
Square Lake Staging Area
Turns out it was a beautiful day! Well, it was a little above 50 degrees and sunny above the water and a bit below 50 degrees under the water. Not horrible but not “warm” either. Jim picked me up and headed east from my house around 1 PM via Highway 36 out to Manning Ave near Stillwater, MN. Square Lake is in the middle of nowhere just northwest of Stillwater. It’s supposed to be one of the clearest lakes in Minnesota but it’s been a while since I would agree with that. It may be the clearest but it isn’t “clear.”
My only dive this trip (#767): Shore Dive @ Square Lake MN
Divers: Karl, Jim & Russ
Our arrival at the campground on Square Lake found Karl finishing his Drysuit Class for the day. Good timing…
We “Geared UP” while Karl finished with his students and sent them on their way. After a lot of adjusting and fiddling, Jim and I were ready to go so Karl followed suit. Gearing_Up The three of us headed to the water. As I stated earlier it’s a beautiful day to dive and except for the initial shock of the 48 degree water on whatever parts of the body that were exposed (hands & face), all went well. Square_Lake_Entry We submerged at the dock and headed out to the first platform. I spent the initial few minutes figuring out my buoyancy which ended up to be just fine even though I had on about four pounds of weights less than the last time I had a drysuit on. The tricky part is figuring out how to add air to the BC and the suit without over-inflating yourself. I did OK. Adding a little to the suit but using my BC for buoyancy at dept (a whole 20 feet)… We reached the first platform and them the “fun” began…
As we moved onto the first platform Jim turned to Karl and I for help. His tank had slipped out of his BCD so I took the dive buoy rope and grabbed him as Karl re-positioned Jim’s tank back in it’s proper position on the BCD. Karl strapped it back down and got the “OK” sign from Jim so I handed the rope back to him and we continued on. Once over the first platform Jim began to fight with the dive buoy at the surface.so after I recognized his plight I surfaced to untangle our dive buoy with the platform buoy. I headed back down to the platform just in time to follow Karl & Jim to the second platform. As we arrived I noticed a lot of silt “blowing” around the edge of the platform. I couldn’t figure out what was going on until Kim emerged from the cloud of silt with two fins. I thought he’d found them on the bottom but it turns out he had lost BOTH of his fins just in front of the platform so he had to dig around on the bottom for them which created the cloud of silt. Luckily he found both so we pulled him unto the platform. I grabbed the dive buoy rope again and kept it this time while Karl and Jim reattached Jim’s fins and tightened them down. What fun… Once that fiasco was averted we continued on to the next platform and this time it was uneventful. In fact the rest of the dive was quiet and ended normally after we made the rounds and returned to the shore. By the time we returned my hands were frozen and locked up so I called it quits and decided not to go on the second dive to retrieve the platform buoys.
Platform Buoys
Karl and Jim warmed up a bit (or tried) but the wind was increasing and the clouds were taking over from the sun so it felt much cooler than when we arrived. They decided to head back to the platforms to retrieve the platform buoys sooner rather than later and as it turned out it was a good decision. They headed back in for their next dive as I began to remove gear and clean up around the staging area. Retrieving the buoys took less than twenty minutes so I didn’t have to wait long for their return and this time all went without a hitch. Karl was happy and amazed it went so well.
I helped then in with all of the buoys (1 dive buoy and 4 platform buoys) and we cleaned up, dried off and began packing up the gear. There is a LOT of gear for two dives… Oh well…
We changed, loaded up the cars, said our goodbyes and headed back. Karl had to drop off the tanks at the shop and Jim dropped me off at home. Traffic heading home on Highway 36 was heavy but all went well.
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