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:
- The Great Barrier reef off the north east cost of Australia
- Sharm El Shake Egypt in the Red Sea
- Key Largo
- Moorea in French Polyneisna
- Rottnest Island Western Australia
- Tahiti
- Port Phillip Bay
- Bull Sholes Lake on the Missouri/Arkansas border
- Quaries anywhere
- Kaw Lake in Oklahoma