The day is a Sunday in mid-October and we can see the reflections of the saguaro studded hills in the water that extends from Vista Point into the main body of Lake Pleasant, Arizona. We are the first scuba divers to arrive at the dive site and unload our equipment onto the the picnic table conveniently located near the trail that winds down to the water. There is a Blue Heron standing like a sentry in the shallows and several fish are surfacing in the otherwise still water. We are not alone for long and other divers arrive filling the parking lot and soon several red dive flags festoon the glassy surface of the lake. Many of the scuba divers are attending classes to earn their open water certifications and others are here to practice skills or to explore the submerged canyons and forests that compose the underwater world of the lake.
We lug our scuba tanks down to the edge of the water and don our gear. We signal each other with an Ok sign and descend into an underwater world of rocky outcrops populated with striped bass and sun fish and finn our way to the “wall” where we turn and head into the deeper water. My dive partner is Gary Moyer, an experienced technical diver and owner of a local dive shop. Recently, he and another diver made a traverse from a location near Vista Point to the Old Waddel Dam. Gary says, “If you can dive Lake Pleasant, then you can dive anywhere in the world.”
Lake Pleasant has some of the best inland scuba diving in the USA because of the walls and canyons and structures like the Old Waddel Dam. The reservoir covers about 10,000 acres reaching depths of 260 feet when the lake is full and offers terrain for all levels of scuba divers from beginners to experts.
Most of the scuba diving happens on the the east and west shores at the southern end of the lake. On the west shore, the popular areas include Desert Tortoise and the 10-lane boat ramp/ Besmeyer Point. Vista Point is the most popular site on the eastern shore. The west shore dive sites are within Lake Pleasant Regional Park and Vista Point is part of Pleasant Harbor Marina, a private inholding. There is a $6 fee per vehicle to enter either location.
The Phoenix metropolitan area boasts a thriving scuba diving community with many dive shops that provide training and equipment rental ranging from scuba tanks to buoyancy compensators and scuba regulators in addition to scuba diving trips and weekend gatherings at Lake Pleasant.
Watch this page for future columns about scuba diving at Lake Pleasant, the details on the winter scuba diving season, and more about dive training.
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