Over the span of the weekend we had several nice dives, enjoying the sunken plane, cars, platforms, incredible walls and much more. The temperature was about 60 degrees at 40 feet and the visibility extended 20 feet or more in most areas.
Arriving at The Blue Lake Saturday morning we found no other cars huddled around the entrance and across the road like normal. The gates opened at 9AM and we slowly drove up to the dive shop. Amazingly, we were the only ones there excluding the two campsites with divers.
Setting up for the days activities, there were dark clouds glooming in the distance threatening rain, the air temperature was in the mid 70's and there was not even the slightest breeze. The top of the water was still as glass allowing us to see deep into the depths along the edges of the cliffs. Looking towards the middle there was a perfect image of the sky reflecting in the water and a shimmering landscape started towards the other side of the quarry.
Submerging into the quarry the visibility was even good at the entrance due to the lack of divers. We went over the first ledge and followed it towards the submerged plane. An image of the plane appeared faint in the distance and then slowly began to take shape from a black outline, to a gray almost recognizable image, then slowly became more detailed as we moved closer. Leaving the plane we swam along the outside wall heading back towards the exit and stopped at the cars. There were several purch snuggled in the crevices of the vehicles that came out to investigate our presence. The fish seemed curious but kept a safe distance most of the time, and often moved in to get a closer look. The fish in the quarry have been shy in the past and would generally dart from view as divers approached. On one dive the next day we found ruminants of broken hotdogs around one of the platforms and some of the cars, that divers had left behind while feeding the fish which explained the dramatic change in their personalities. 
During the last dive of the weekend we swam past a cave that had faint glimmers of light shinning against an inside wall. Investigating the source of the light I found the ceiling to be more like a 4 foot swim through that opened up into a round tubular area about 10 feet in diameter that continued straight up about 15 feet into open water at the top of the cliffs edge.
Saturday night we ate at Del Rio restaurant located on Ridgeline Road. This place has excellent Mexican food that exceeds my expectations every time I eat there. The dining areas are located in a room with high ceilings and projects the illusion of sitting in a old down town area of Mexico with the upper part of the wall made up to look like 2nd story apartments looking over the street below.
The Blue Lake at Oronogo, Missouri is a great place to dive with excellent visibility, a lot of underwater attractions and the convenience of Captain John's Scuba Sports on location. 

Article Provided by:
Chris Stephens        
Scuba Adventurer    

HAVE FUN ON YOUR DIVE TRIPS 
AND SCUBA DIVE SAFELY!