As I sat on the gunwale of an aluminum rowboat off the north bank of Clear Lake, I went through a mental checklist before diving in the frigid 40-degree water.
Wetsuit, check.
Hood, gloves and booties, check.
Weight belt, fins and mask. Good to go.
“Alright,” I said to two friends who spent the last few minutes folding, tucking and zipping me into the skintight neoprene, “time to get cold.”
With my hand held on my mask ensuring it didn’t fly off upon entry, I leaned back and splashed into a turquoise world among 3,000-year-old petrified trees.
After spending my childhood snorkeling in the tropical water of the Florida Keys, I thought I knew what clear water looked like. But nothing I’ve seen compares to Clear Lake’s hundreds of feet of visibility. The crystalline water, views of sunken forests and varying depths make the lake located in the Central Cascade Mountains east of Eugene a hotbed for scuba and free divers in the western U.S.
“Clear Lake looks like you’re diving on a different planet,” said Shelby Powelson, whose family has owned and operated Aquatic Sports in Portland since 1966 and leads divers on annual trips to the lake.