Tim's unexciting SCUBA Page -- Kaw Lake

Scuba Diving in Kaw Lake

Kaw Lake is a man made lake in Oklahoma on the Arkansas river.

Kaw lake is the worst place to dive in the world. Maybe thats a bit extreme but Kaw lake is a horrible dive location.

Downstream of the dam

My first attempt to dive was downstream of the dam. Dams tend to kick up the silt but the water looked semi-clear and I wanted to dive and I was stuck in Ponca City for some reason. The result was that visibility was only about a foot most of the time and up to three feet in places. The water wasn't more than 10 ft deep so that dive spot was abandoned and we headed up to the swimming beach.

Kaw Lake Swimming Beach

This beach isn't very good for swimming but has buoys marking the outer edge of the swimming area. The plan was simple. Swim out to the center buoy and then start the dive from there. All geared up and off we went. At the buoy I descended about three seconds till my fins hit the mud. It was completely dark and I had no idea how fast I had gone down. I grabbed my dive light (good thing I brought it on a nice sunny day) and it said I was at 10 ft. I had to hold the gauge and flashlight up to my mask just to make that out. I surfaced and decided that was enough diving for the day. I'm guessing the visibility was about 3 inches.
    My ranked list of dive spots:
  1. The Great Barrier reef off the north east cost of Australia
  2. Sharm El Shake Egypt in the Red Sea
  3. Key Largo
  4. Moorea in French Polyneisna
  5. Rottnest Island Western Australia
  6. Tahiti
  7. Port Phillip Bay
  8. Bull Sholes Lake on the Missouri/Arkansas border
  9. Quaries anywhere
  10. Kaw Lake in Oklahoma



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