Beneath the waterline of Lake Pleasant lies some of the most amazing lost history in the Southwest. Lake Pleasant has been around for boating and recreation for almost 100 years. Just think of all the people and boats that have come and gone from the lake in those times. It truly makes you stop and wonder just what exactly is below the waterline. You just never know what you are going to find!
Tech Island
Tech Island is an amazingly diverse dive site with depths ranging from 15 ft to 180 ft depending on where you dive around the mostly submerged island. These depths vary throughout the year at the lake is drained and refilled each year. So you never know what you'll find as the water levels increase and decrease throughout the year. Some of the aquatic life you may see while diving the site include schools of blue channel catfish, flathead catfish, blue gill, brown Asian carp, largemouth bass, talapia and striper. Tech is also home to the one of two swimthrough rock features in the lake as well as vastly tall walls to dive on that make up the islands contours.
The Pinnacles
The Pinnacles is a dive site that offers steep walls and pinnacle rock formations that protrude from the lake bed. Depths here range from 15 ft to 160 ft depending on where you choose to explore within the site. Some of the aquatic life you may see while diving the site include schools of catfish, blue gill, brown Asian carp, largemouth bass, and striper.
The Wreck of the XXI Gun
This is one of only a few wreck dive sites in the entire lake. The XXI Gun foundered sometime ago and is believed to have run aground most likely in a storm as she has a large gash in her portside bow. When she hit the rocky bottom she spilled her contents across the lake bed. It's not uncommon for divers to find random items strewn about around the wreck. The wreck is approximately 28 ft long and has a variety of aquatic life that live on and around it that call it their home. Depths here typically range from 30 ft to 120 ft depending on the season and current lake levels.
The Old Waddell Dam
We could easily write a novel on how cool of a dive site this is but the long and short of it is, this is the Crown Jewel of diving in the lake. The old dam is over 2,160 ft in length with an upstream height of 120 ft and a downstream height varying from 30 ft to 260 ft of depth in the center of the Agua Fria riverbed. We have several sites here due to the massive amount of stuff to see here with depths ranging from 50 ft to 260 ft depending on the site. Due to the annual draw down of the lake water levels, the top of the Old Waddell Dam is no longer within Open Water certification depths and is now rated as an advanced dive which requires at minimum a Deep Diver certification and 100 logged dives. Most often this is where you can find our Technical Dive Team exploring and continuing to find new artifacts from when the dam was built back in the 1920s.
