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National Park Quiz 29: Diving

Scuba divers. Photo by Anders Finn via Wikipedia.

1. Divers who know their geography know that Pacific Reef is not in the Pacific Ocean. It’s near Elkhorn Coral Reef on the eastern edge of
a. Biscayne National Park
b. Gateway National Recreation Area
c. Canaveral National Seashore
d. Cape Hatteras National Seashore

2. You’ll need to visit a national park and dive to a depth of over 200 feet in ______ if you want to explore the wreck of the Kamloops, a lake freighter that mysteriously sank in 1927 with the loss of all hands.
a. Lake Erie
b. Lake Michigan
c. Lake Huron
d. Lake Superior

3. To dive on the wreck of the schooner barge Noquebay, which burned and sank in 1905, you will need to visit ______ National Lakeshore.
a. Apostle Islands
b. Sleeping Bear Dunes
c. Pictured Rocks
d. Indiana Dunes

4. Renowned for its excellent rock climbing, ______ also offers an outstanding opportunity to dive in a lake that has an "underwater forest."
a. Yellowstone National Park
b. Yosemite National Park
c. Grand Teton National Park
d. Olympic National Park

5. If you dive Ringbolt Rapids, which is eight miles north of Willow Beach, you are diving in ______, a park whose other diving spots include Gypsum Reefs, Saddle Island, and Boulder Islands.
a. Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area
b. Curecanti National Recreation Area
c. Lake Mead National Recreation Area
d. Yellowstone National Park

6. If you dive on the Ranch House, you’re diving in ______ National Recreation Area, a border park whose central feature is a lake created by a dam and reservoir project.
a. Chickasaw
b. Amistad
c. Lake Meredith
d. Bighorn Canyon

7. You’ll need to visit ______ National Recreation Area if you want to dive in Frozen Leg Bay, part of a reservoir that was impounded by the Yellowtail Dam.
a. Delaware Water Gap
b. Santa Monica Mountains
c. Lake Chelan
d. Bighorn Canyon

8. You tell me that your Search and Rescue (SAR) activities include diving to retrieve bodies from plunge pools at the base of waterfalls. From this I deduce that even though you could be stationed at any of a number of different mountain parks, your diving skills would be needed most at
a. Zion National Park
b. Yosemite National Park
c. Rocky Mountain National Park
d. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

9. Though it doesn't lie within the park boundaries, the wreck of the Cormoran is managed by Guam's War in the Pacific National Historical Park and is accessible to divers. The Cormoran was scuttled by its captain during the
a. Russian-Japanese War
b. Spanish-American War
c. First World War
d. Second World War

10. In which of Hawai‘i ‘s national parks are divers asked not to exit the water or leave dive gear directly off the pahoehoe lava in front of the Place of Refuge?
a. Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park
b. Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park
c. Kalaupapa National Historical Park
d. Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park

Extra Credit Question:

11. If you are diving on the Winfield Scott in Channel Islands National Park, you are diving near
a. Anacapa Island
b. Santa Barbara Island
c. San Miguel Island
d. Santa Rosa Island

Super Bonus Question:

12. The Laundry, a drift diving spot in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, gets its name from
a. its historical use by the Native Inuit
b. its strong currents
c. the high mineral content of water
d. a nearby Gold Rush era building

Answers:

(1) a –- Because of the strong currents, exploring Pacific Reef is for experienced divers only.

(2) d -- The Kamloops is in the Lake Superior waters of Isle Royale National Park. The shallowest part of the wreck, the stern, is approximately 195 feet below the water’s surface. After initial recon dives, the National Park Service team, because of the extreme depths and frigid water, used a remote operated vehicle to complete the survey of the vessel.

(3) a -– The Noquebay lies splayed open in less than 15 feet of water at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

(4) c -- In the Tetons, landslides on hillsides surrounding Jenny Lake deposited their arboreal load in the lake. Root balls weighted down with rocks were carried to the 100-foot bottom, where they stuck upright in the bottom sediment and took on the appearance of rooted trees. It’s a neat place to dive!

(5) c -- Ringbolt Rapids is below Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in Lake Mead National Recreation Area. This is another dive for serious divers only, as the river, not the diver, is in control a lot of the time. The ability to clear one’s ears is absolutely necessary as the current often sucks the diver into holes 70 feet deep.

(6) b – The Ranch House in Amistad National Recreation Area on the U.S-Mexico border is often used to train National Park Service divers who need to practice night dives in silty conditions.

(7) d -- Frozen Leg Bay in Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area is one of the few places in the National Park System where divers are asked to remove what they find on the bottom, as it was once the site of a marina.

(8) b -- Diving in the pools to look for bodies of people who have gone over the falls is one of the less pleasurable things about being a member of Yosemite’s diving team. During one particularly hazardous winter operation, rangers stationed a spotter on the other side of the Valley to warn divers when ice blocks came off the lip of the Upper Falls.

(9) c -- The German raider Cormoran was scuttled in Apra Harbor on 6 April 1917, the day of America’s entry into World War I. A sunken Japanese cargo vessel rests against her stern, making this one of the few places where divers can explore World War I and World War II vessels during the same dive.

(10) d – Pu’uhonua o Honnaunau National Historical Park preserves a place that is considered sacred by native Hawaiians and honored by the National Park Service staff. Pu’uhonua is a Hawaiian term meaning “place of refuge.”

(11) a -- The Winfield Scott was a Gold Rush schooner that went down near Anacapa Island in 1853. Undercover rangers once found a diver removing a coin from the site. His fine was worth far more than the coin.

(12 b -- The Laundry got its odd name because the current rips through here so powerfully at times that anyone in it feels as if they’re being tossed around in a washing machine.

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