Skaneateles lake (Skaneateles, NY) is about a 45 minute drive from Syracuse and has very nice freshwater diving.
Visibility ranges from 0 to 60 feet depending on whether or not it has rained recently, and the water temperature ranges from 32f (February) to around 70f (August). While the visibility is sometimes poor, the water is biologically very clean, and is one of only a few lakes in the country that is used as a municipal water supply with no additional filtration.
In many areas of the lake, the water depth increases gradually from 0' at the shore, down a gently sloping bottom, to a maximum of several hundred feet. In other areas there are very cool wall dives that start out around 40' and drop down to around 80'.
The shallow areas are covered with tall grasses, while the deeper areas are mostly rock and sediment. fossils can be found in a number of locations near the eastern shore.
Access is from the New York State Public Boat Launch (near the vilage), the boat launch in Mandana, and Sevey's Marina in Mandana. Note that if you go in from the Public Boat Launch, you need to be diving from a boat, since the DEC will throw you out and may fine you if you dive from shore. Sevey's allows diving from their dock, but you need to bring a dive flag and float, and move away from the doc to allow the regular boat traffic access.
When you're done diving, the village of Skaneatles has all sorts of very nice, small restaurants both casual and elegant, ranging from Doug's Fish Fry (excellent fish, onion rings and scallops) to the blue Water Grill (great pub-food overlooking the lake) to Kabuki (very nice sushi) to the Mirabeau (very elegant and relaxing spa, with beautiful rooms and a world-class restaurant).
The current lake temperature is available at: http://www.nationalaquatic.com/ ; during the summer, additional water data is available, including the depth of the thermocline, wind speed and wave height. during the summer, NAS also runs single tank evening dives on Wednesday and Friday, and two tank dives on Saturday afternoon. The surrounding countryside is quite beautiful, and the evening dives are very relaxing.
-- terry@bupkis.org
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