Jordan Marina Our New Home - April 2012

As April is upon us, the MWMD Crew had a tough decision to make. Our slip fees were due on Table Rock Lake and we needed to consider if we wanted to continue another year calling Table Rock our home base or try something different. We enjoy Table Rock, but over the last couple years we have noticed that more and more larger boats travel the lake making it difficult for our little 24’ pontoon (dubbed The Muck Diver) to safely travel the same waters. We definitely have found a new appreciation for Bayliners that tend to create large tsunami’s. After a call to order meeting, the decision was made and a new adventure had begun…..new home base will now to be Jordan Marina on Norfork Lake.

Honestly, this decision was a fairly simple one. Over the last couple years we made several trips down to Norfork and found a great friendship with Dan and Denise who own and operate Jordan Marina. Along with that the lake is Awesome with limited boat traffic and many dive sites established for scuba divers. Denise had been telling us that in the spring the lake is at its best with visibility ranging in the 60’+ range. Last year we got a taste of this right before the Midwest floods that wiped out the diving on all lakes. We knew we had to get back, so the adventure begins….

We loaded up the trailer early and headed down to Indian Point Marina. After waking up The Muck Diver from her winter hibernation we took a quick run around the lake and pulled her out. I have to say I was a little saddened as we pulled out of the ramp. After tying her down for the journey to Norfork we walked over to the Dive Shop. We had heard new owners had purchased the Dive Shop and met up with them for the grand tour. They have done an excellent job in basically rebuilding the shop area and installing stairs from the shop into the water. Excitement was in the air as they told us about the many boats that are sunken in the cove as dive attractions and their plans to install ropes to all these for easy shore diving. All this sounded great to me because we now had another dive site to return to.

Time was ticking away and we needed to get on the road to take The Muck Diver to her new home. The trip was slow to keep The Muck Diver from swaying too much and with every curve and hill I quickly realized why not too many large boats were on Norfork. Soon we arrived at Jordan Marina and it felt like we had returned home. After putting The Muck Diver to bed we drove around the lake and wished we had brought our dive gear because the water was looking awesome. However, we quickly saw that Dan had been hard a work again (or still) playing Chinese Checkers with all the ramps leading to the marina. The water was up covering part of the campsites; reminiscence of the year prior when the floods of 2011 had hit when was there. After “lollygagging” for a couple hours we finally decided we had to get back on the road and get home.

The 2012 Dive Season is upon us. We are excited as we are planning our trips and can’t wait to get back down to Norfork and introduce The Muck Diver to her new stomping ground. We are thinking early May and see if we can cash-in on the incredible viz that Denise has been teasing us about.

To be Continued……