Wazee Lake

Last Sunday, Jeff finished his Advanced Open Water dive training (through PADI). He had two dives to complete before his certification would be achieved. The dives were scheduled to be done at Wazee Lake in WI. It's a 2+ hour drive, so we drove out together.

We met the dive instructor and the others in the class at a gas station in Black River Falls before heading to the lake. The lake is a reclaimed mined and one of the deepest lakes in WI (depths up to 350', I believe).

This is a gorgeous lake!

While he did his first dive, I lounged around the car - playing on Facebook and napping.

During his second dive, I decided to check out the beach.

Source

This beach was absolutely gorgeous, with the. softest. sand. ever! The water was perfect, too.
I did feel a little weird hanging at the beach by myself, though, but was worth it to cool off a bit.

After Jeff's 2nd dive, we went for a short dive together. It was only about a 20min dive because we were getting low on air. I'd definitely consider this my first real dive, and it was so fun! It was the longest, deepest, clearest dive of my life. :-)

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from underwater.

There are a few more pictures in my Picasa Scuba! album, if you're interested.

Swimming with the Sharks

This past Sunday, Jeff and I headed to SeaLife MN.

As a newly certified PADI Open Water Diver, Jeff was excited to get back underwater. I decided I needed a little more time to practice before diving in front of an audience at an aquarium, so I went as an observer this time.

I'll join him next time. :)

The package deal included a behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium (I didn't go on this), a dive in the freshwater tank, and a dive in the saltwater tank.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the freshwater tank.

A few from the saltwater...

Jeff had a blast!

Here is what he wrote in an email to a friend:

Diving at SeaLife was frick'n awesome. The sharks and the sea turtles were huge. A couple big sharks went right over my head, and a giant sea turtle came right up behind me and pushed me out of her way. It was sweet. Also, in the fresh water tank, several sturgeon nipped at me with their weird hose-like mouth (it doesn't hurt, just freakie). Clarinda got some great photos of me from the underwater tunnels, and I took some really cool videos inside the tanks.

I haven't had a chance to go through the videos yet, but hopefully I'll get a chance to post them soon in a separate post.

In the meantime, feel free to watch the whole slideshow.