When you think about scuba diving, what exotic locations pop quickly to mind? The Florida Keys? The coast of Belize? Australia’s Great Barrier Reef?

How about Nazareth, Pa.? Didn’t think so.

Dutch Springs also offers a variety of attractions for non-divers, including the Aqua Park, Sky Challenge and North Star Adventures team-building program.

But Dutch Springs, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this weekend, has become one of the hottest scuba destinations for divers on the East Coast over the past three decades and now draws more than 35,000 dive students and enthusiasts each year.

“If you are not involved in scuba diving, you may not know that we have scuba here in the Lehigh Valley and that it is known internationally to divers,” said Dutch Springs owner Stu Schooley, a former accountant who got involved in the project in the late 1970s while trying to help a client open a local dive site.

Schooley’s client regularly visited quarries throughout eastern Pennsylvania and into New Jersey and New York, obtaining permission from owners to dive when he found a new spot. He wanted to do something closer to home that would provide public access to divers, but after years of working through the approvals process, the client and his partners ran out of money and couldn’t afford to open Dutch Springs. Schooley and a small band who had been involved in advisory roles in the process took over the project and opened Dutch Springs on Labor Day weekend, 1980.

A lifelong athlete, Schooley once considered moving to Vermont and purchasing a ski area to give himself a more athletic career option than tax preparation. Family members overruled that idea, and when the Dutch Springs project came along he decided to try to make a go of it here. In 1986 he bought out his partners and has run Dutch Springs since then.

Schooley has built the scuba experience steadily over the past three decades, adding various vehicles and attractions at different depths – ranging from a small plane to a school bus to a full-size Sikorsky helicopter — to the 50-acre lake to give divers the chance to swim through and explore them.

Surface water temperatures at the spring-fed lake hover around 80 degrees in the summer. There is a thermocline at 30 feet where temperatures drop below 60 and into the high 50s, and a second thermocline at 60 feet where temperatures drop into the 40s and 50s. The overall average water temperature is 47 in the summer. In winter the surface temperature drops to about 32 or 33 degrees and about 37 degrees at deeper depths.

Dutch Springs works with more than 200 dive shops and more than 1,000 instructors from more than seven different states.

In 2004 Dutch Springs added an Aqua Park with inflatables to give non-divers an alternative to backyard and municipal pools and let them experience the deep-water swimming. All swimmers are provided with life vests or wetsuits for buoyancy, since the water levels quickly drop to 50 feet or more just inches from the shore. Swimmers can also rent various paddle boats to tour the lake. Certified life guards are on duty and the water quality is tested regularly to meet state environmental health standards.

Other attractions include the Sky Challenge and in 2006, Schooley added North Star Adventures. North Star works with local companies and organizations on team-building exercises unique to the site and also offers merit badge programs for Boy and Girl scouts and Dutch Springs makes the lake available to triathletes and swimmers training for major competitions.

“We have a huge following. We have had people here from every state and several foreign countries” Schooley said. “We have a place that is unique in the Lehigh Valley. It has certainly presented a lot of challenges but it has also been very rewarding and fun.”

If You Go: Dutch Springs is located at 4733 Hanoverville Rd., Bethlehem. For more information on hours, rates and programs, go to www.dutchsprings.com.

What To Know: Most divers are associated with a certified dive shop program or instructor. Camping is available and there are several nearby hotels and motels. Go to www.discoverlehighvalley for more on lodging, dining and other nearby attractions.

Facts: Dutch Springs lake is spring-fed from an underground aquifer that seeps through the limestong, providing for 20 to 30 feet of visibility and making it ideal for scuba diving.