Wazee Lake in Black River Falls

9-16-14 and early 2000’s

We first began going here in 2000 to practice our deep scuba diving skills in a clear lake.  Then busyness and other factors kept us from coming here for 10 years.   We returned to rekindle that happy feeling again and see updates done since our last visit here.

Jackson County offers a great many outdoor sport and hunting opportunities, not just water based. Here is a list of all the fun you can have here!

We arrived at the Wazee Lake Recreation Area in the morning, the lake steaming since the air was colder than the water surface. There is a small fee for entering the park, $3 for a vehicle. We found out there are more diving entry points then there were 10 years ago. They also better named too, rather than just North entrance, etc.  Here is a diving map of the lake with depth profiles.

Took a look at their campsite, was have camped here before. It’s primitive, no hookups. There is water and a restroom building though. There are 12 sites, first come, first served.

 

                     Foxpoint Overlook

 

                                   The Wall Dive Access

A new entry point called “Bluegill Alley”  There is a map showing an underwater course to attractions on the bottom.

As we go around the lake clockwise, we find another informative sign and overlook.

Our favorite and biggest site improvement was made here at the Sherwood Forest Dive access. There is now a wheelchair-accessible pier, restroom building and grills, and picnic tables. Many kind hearts in Black River Falls.  There is even a table for divers to put their gear on by the water.

 

For the first time, we had a good look at the beach, nice!

South Shore Boat Landing

This was our favorite site of all. This is where we liked to do our 100-ft deep multi-level dive. We go down to 100 ft. deep, then up to 70, then 40 and do a safety stop at 20 feet back in the shallow area by the fish cribs.

I got video of this dive too in 2000, join us!

We had a great visit here that brought back so many happy memories. Remember to stop by the Wazee Sports Center for tank air, including Nitrox and other custom air mixtures for tech divers.

Kenosha – Wisconsin Harbor Town

12-1-12

Kenosha is a bustling city of 100,000  located on the shores of Lake Michigan with a lot for their citizens and visitors to do the year around.  We had a full day planned and arrived by 9 AM.   Our first stop was Harbor Park by the lake, with great views of the two lighthouses there. The red one is the North Pier Light and the stone one is the Southport.  We also had the great luck of watching a Coast Guard boat head out to the lake, passing by the Southport lighthouse.

Harbor Park also has lots of great sculptures to look at too along the harbor walk. This called, “Rotating Through the Universe”  by Paul Bobrowitz, Jr.

You also get around downtown on the Kenosha Streetcar for a small fee.

After the Harbor Walk  we went to take a closer took at the Southport Lighthouse on Simmons Island, constructed in 1866.

 

It was noon and we were ready for lunch! Nearby was the Boathouse Pub and Eatery with a view lakeside.

We had a great lunch here and will come back again. There were a couple more hours before the main event we came here for, so we then headed to the Kenosha Public Museum to enjoy their free public holiday celebration. The Museum is a must-see place in Kenosha.

They had a Christmas Village model train display, beautiful!

The Sons of Norway provides live music, singing traditional Christmas Carols.

The best part of all, we managed to get on Kenosha TV via their Public TV station, KTV. They had a TV camera set, recording people sending their holiday greetings to Kenosha. We had to join the fun! Here is a screencap of the video. In honor of Bob and Doug McKenzie of the Great White North, I made our picture look like theirs.

And NOW, for the main event.  At about 2:30 we arrived at Diver Dan’s Scuba and Aquatic Center for our Underwater Santa Christmas photo.  They have a warm-water pool on site. This event benefits a local charity,  you donate something in exchange for the photo which they put on Facebook.

 

Happy Holidays from Kenosha!

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Antique Coca-Cola Bottle

Al and I found this antique Coca-Cola bottle on a scuba dive many years ago, probably Lake Monona.  It was manufactured by Frank Statz & Co., approximately 1905-1915.

The words “Coca-cola” are embossed on the glass.

You never know what is buried in the muck at the bottom of your local lake.

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Taking the Plunge! – Our Underwater Wedding 7-24-99

July 24, 1999  14 years ago….

Our two years of courtship have come to an end, today was our wedding day. We met on July 9, 1997.    Al and I dated for two years and were ready to begin our lives together as husband and wife.  We enjoyed an 8-month engagement and lots of planning.   We are scuba divers, and we had planned an underwater wedding at Devil’s Lake in Baraboo.  (Some) people thought we were nuts, but we stuck to our guns. THIS was the kind of wedding we were bound and determined to have. The day dawned bright and hot. We had spent the night in a cabin nearby, too excited to sleep much.  We arrived at the lake,  our guests were arriving also.  We got suited up in our gear.. We were ready to dive!  We headed to the water excitedly. We had spent the last 8 months learning our vows in American Sign Language to “speak” them underwater.  The diver who performed our ceremony was a judge, a friend of ours.  He had previous experience performing an underwater wedding, the year before in Door County for my diving Instructor.  We all descended to the bottom, about 20 feet deep.  Here is our diving Judge.

Al, do you take Laurie as your lawfully wedding wife?  I  do 🙂

The ceremony went off without a hitch! We surfaced and signed our Marriage Certificate.  We headed back to Madison for our reception at the Sapphire Ballroom, we had around 100  guests who didn’t see us at Devil’s Lake. Here is our family portrait.  Our photographer was from Creative Images by “Cal”.  They did a great job!

Time to cut the cake.  We had a water design for our cake since we are divers.       The wedding was wonderful,  now it was time to go on our honeymoon.  We went to Florida for a week.  Part of it in Kissimee and the other part in Cocoa Beach.  We had our first ocean dives ever, and the water was beautiful.  One of our dives was a shore dive from Ambersand Beach Access. On our honeymoon we also took a Deep Diving course given by Joe Bartoszek  of Cocoa Beach Scuba Odyssey, who is still an active Scuba Instructor today, and our friend. It was out of the Fishing And Diving Center in Cape Canaveral.  A favorite restaurant we went to was Old Fisherman’s Wharf in Cocoa Beach. The attraction was their catfish, you could feed them from the pier that the restaurant was on.  I don’t think they are there anymore, I am sure glad I got a t-shirt from there.

On the last full day in Florida we went to Kennedy Space Center. What fun to see where the Space Shuttle took off and all the other space artifacts. We also had our first “crazy character” picture there 🙂

We had a wonderful time in Florida, and looked forward to many more adventures, the ones you are reading about now 🙂  Thanks for joining us on life’s journey.