Southwest Sizzle - Lake Havasu City Tourism and Community Blog

DRIVE AND DIVE
A view of Lake Havasu; below, from left:
spring-break central; Army surplus Jeep;
London Bridge (yes, that London Bridge).
Southwest
Sizzle
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: SHUTTERSTOCK; ROBERT HARDING WORLD IMAGERY/GETTY IMAGES; JOEL SILVERSTEIN; DAVID R. FRAZIER PHOTOLIBRARY INC./ALAMY
Arizona’s Lake Havasu offers
60 miles of shoreline to
explore �A BY TED ALAN STEDMAN
It’s a few degrees shy of the hottest place
on Earth, where the Mojave and Sonoran
deserts conspire with triple-digit temperatures from June through September. But
in this devilish landscape roughly three
hours south of Las Vegas, there’s a seemingly outrageous proposition: real-deal
diving at an array of named sites and
near-limitless exploratory opportunities.
Surrounded by ceaseless k­ haki-colored
mountains and dune fields, 45-mile-long
Lake Havasu — a reservoir forming
the California-Arizona border — was
­created on the lower Colorado River in
1938 to provide water for Phoenix and
Southern California. Its namesake city
was established in 1963 by i­nventor/
entrepreneur Robert McCulloch of
EXPANSIVE LAKE
HAVASU HAS
450 LARGELY
­UNDEVELOPED
SHORELINE MILES
OF ­PUBLIC LANDS
­PEPPERED WITH
TRAILS AND
QUIET COVES,
WITH ­NUMEROUS
SITES THAT CAN
BE VISITED FROM
SHORE OR BOAT.
scubadiving.com JUNE 2014 / 31
McCulloch Motors Corporation, who
famously purchased the London Bridge
for nearly $2.5 million and reconstructed it in Lake Havasu City in 1971.
While the city and its waterfront have
become the spring-break epicenter for
every college in a 500-mile radius, its
rap as a party-hearty desert outpost
doesn’t faze the regional dive community of roughly 1,000 divers. The
expansive lake has 450 largely undeveloped shoreline miles of public lands
peppered with trails, quiet coves and
numerous underwater dive sites that can
be visited by divers either from shore or
boat. A particular Lake Havasu exclusive is its 100-plus shore-side improved
boat camps tucked into remote coves.
These first-come, first-served sites — with toilets, fire pits and tables — are
a springboard to underwater sites that
rarely, if ever, see divers.
About 30 named sites comprise the
greatest-hits list, with wrecks, ghost
­forests of flooded trees, bizarre ­geology,
drift dives and man-made fish h
­ abitats
distinguishing the desert-diving
­experience. If this underwater tableau
sounds vaguely familiar, you might
recall the 2010 ­horror-comedy film
Piranha 3-D. The campy cult classic
filmed on Lake Havasu featured awakened schools of prehistoric bloodthirsty
fish that left no bikini-clad swimmer
unscathed. Bikinis do abound, but
the closest thing to razor-toothed fish
is flittering schools of striped bass and
humongous channel catfish that might
pass for pelagics in these parts.
DRIVE AND DIVE
Havasu’s Site Five allow divers to practice navigational skills in low viz.
My desert-diving debut began near
Black Meadow Landing, a ­serpentine
inlet a half-hour boat ride south of
town. Beginning on the lake’s eastern
­A rizona rim, the shore dive gently slopes
to 45 feet and follows a series of fixed
guidelines, enabling divers to cross into
the California side. The lake bottom is
generally silty, requiring divers to dial in
their buoyancy so as not to kick up silt
clouds. As you follow the lines, you’ll see
the ghosts of Christmas past: Christmas
tree “reefs” tethered by cinder blocks and
PVC pipes sunk by wildlife biologists.
Before the lake’s creation, trees lined
the Colorado River channel, providing
nooks and crannies for fish to hide and
reproduce. Once the river was tamed, the
trees decomposed, and by the late 1980s,
Lake Havasu’s c­ rystal-clear waters didn’t
afford cover for newly spawned fish.
Now, at 42 coves like Black Meadow
Landing, more than 30 million farmharvested Christmas trees have become
the gifts that keep on giving by helping fish populations flourish. To date,
roughly $16 million has been spent on
875 acres of these a­ rtificial reefs.
Site Five is a testament to the local dive
community’s i­ nfatuation with whimsical
waypoint courses. This site is on the
“island” created by the dredging of
Bridgewater Channel to a­ ccommodate
the London Bridge. At this small cove,
divers envisioned an area to train and
practice various diving skills in all of
25 feet. Viz here can be extremely limited, making Site Five live up to its
expectations as a place where underwater
navigation is a needed skill if its prizes
are to be discovered. What you’ll find
are two sailboats, a small trihull ­vessel, a
truck, and the pièce de r­ ésistance: a questionable attempt at what was supposed
to be a shallow-diving submarine. Even
though nylon guidelines lead to each
To find the best dive sites, shops, operators and
more near you — all on a handy locator map —
visit scubadiving.com/dive-local.
need to know
When to go:
Diving is possible
year-round in Lake
Havasu; March
through October you
avoid the gusty
winter winds that
affect navigation.
Early June through
late September, day
temps usually
exceed 100 degrees.
Dive conditions:
Most diving takes
place at 30 named
and moored sites,
but with 60
navigable shoreline
miles, opportunities
for exploratory
shore dives abound.
Average depth is
35 feet; maximum
depth is 90 feet.
Winter water temps
hover around 47
degrees and reach
the high 70s by
August, with a colder
thermocline at 30
feet. Viz is best late
spring through early
summer, up to 50
feet. Drysuits and
7 mm wetsuits with
hoods, gloves and
booties are needed
in cooler months.
Operator: As a
recreational and
scubadiving.com JUNE 2014 / 32
Las
Vegas
Lake Havasu
arizona
Phoenix
technical-training
center, full-service
shop and dive-­
services provider,
Scuba Training
& Technology
(scubatrainingand
technology.com)
has extensive
knowledge of Lake
Havasu diving, and
offers beginner
through advanced
dive packages,
including nitrox and
trimix. Two-tank
dive charters begin
at $75 per person.
Lake Havasu
ITINERARY
DAY Fuel up
1 on banana
JOEL SILVERSTEIN; OPPOSITE, FROM TOP: COURTESY LONDON BRIDGE RESORT; SHUTTERSTOCK; GEORGE H.H. HUEY/ALAMY Training platforms like this one at Lake
structure, we brushed up on our
compass skills and found each
one on cue in the challenging
10-foot viz.
The most iconic Havasu dive
site is Copper Canyon, best
known for its wild spring-break
parties where you could walk
across the cove from boat to boat
without touching water. With
all those bronzed 20-somethings
doing what comes naturally, a
bounty of goods – namely sunglasses, watches, cellphones
and unopened bottles of booze
— awaits at the bottom. Finders keepers is the rule here, but
aside from the spoils found at
the 30-foot depths, the diving
is exhilarating for its natural
beauty above and below. Vertical red-rock walls extend from surface
to the bottom; interesting, rugged rock
formations sprout like gargoyles on cliffs
and beneath the surface. If you’ve seen
Piranha 3-D, the movie could even
rekindle some of the silly scenes filmed
here that locals have laughingly dubbed
“Jaws of Lake Havasu.” Remember,
­desert diving is a different animal!
nut French
toast at Makai
Café overlooking Bridgewater
Channel, where
you’ll board the
42-foot M/V
Explorer pontoon dive
vessel with
Scuba
Training &
Technology
for shakedown
dives at Black
Meadow
Landing a
­half-hour
south. Come
showcasing the
slot-canyon
geology of
the Sonoran
Desert. At the
London Bridge
Resort’s
Martini Bay,
enjoy spectacular sunsets,
cocktails and
live entertainment before
calling it a night
in plush-butaffordable
rooms.
DAY After final
evening,
­nothing beats
the pizzas and
craft beers at
local lake-side
fave Barley
Brothers
Restaurant
& Brewery.
3 early dives
at the Miller’s SunsetHouse_028311_SPD0614P.indd
Folly wreck
or Copper
Canyon, see
the most
­spectacular
part of the lake
by kayak from
Sandbar Power
Sports. At quiet
Topock Gorge
you’ll paddle
beneath
1
3/31/14 5:02 PM
DAY Check out
2 the lake’s
deepest dive,
Deep Hole,
and the ­playful
rope course at
Site Five. In
the afternoon,
hike the 5-mile
Crack in the
Mountain Trail,
­ olorful, steep
c
rock walls that
form a mini
Grand Canyon.
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