Location: Baranoff Warm Springs, Baranoff Island, southeast Alaska.
Did a couple of great dives today on Baranoff Rock outside of Baranoff Warm Spring on – you guessed it – Baranoff Island in southeast Alaska. This pinnacle always proves popular with our scuba diving guests as it is loaded with a huge variety of critters, interesting topography and lots of kelp. You can see just about anything here from tiny grunt sculpins to giant king crab.. Visiting the local hot springs always proves popular with our guests although I am baffled as to why the place is named “Warm Springs” – temperature in the hottest pool is 107F or 42C!! Funny thing happened – and definitely a first on the Nautilus – when a couple of guests asked if they could hike up the boardwalk and trail to dive a nearby mountain Lake.. It’s a good 15 minute uphill slog but sure, why not??? So they set off past some very puzzled local residents and yachtsmen with full dive gear and divemaster Grant to make what I am sure is the first-ever dive in Baranoff Lake! Kudos to Rob and Scott!! They reported that it was an interesting dive. No fish but they did see enormous logs 5 – 6 feet across sticking straight up out of the bottom and found some cool bottles including a Coca Cola bottle dated 1928!! Scott later told me that he found the wing of Amelia Earhart’s airplane buried in the sand but I am not sure I believe him! Captain Mike
Weather: Foggy and overcast in the morning. Stunningly beautiful with blue skies and mirror smooth glassy calm water in the afternoon. Air temperature low 70’s.
Water: Visibility 10 feet in the shallows (Baranoff Rock), 20 – 25 feet under the plankton bloom. Water temperature 46F or 8C
Scuba diving in a mountain lake in Alaska!!
