Diving at Portage or Gilboa OH

I am planning a trip to visit family in Ohio and Indiana over the next few weekends. I was just curious if anyone has experience diving at Portage or Gilboa quarries in Ohio. In particular I am interested if there is generally a good number of divers at these sites on weekends in September/early October that I could buddy with if I just "showed up." Thanks for any information you might have!

Taxshark once bubbled...
I am planning a trip to visit family in Ohio and Indiana over the next few weekends. I was just curious if anyone has experience diving at Portage or Gilboa quarries in Ohio. In particular I am interested if there is generally a good number of divers at these sites on weekends in September/early October that I could buddy with if I just "showed up." Thanks for any information you might have!

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Gilboa is pretty nice as far as quarries go. The only time Gilboa doesn't have a gaggle of divers is on holidays. Heck, there's even divers out there when it's sub-zero outside.

On the other hand, I don't think I've heard anything to write home about on Portage. If you're going to 'settle' for Portage, you'd be better off to go to Whitestar.

bob

Four of us from Michigan are headed down on Friday evening. Actually, two of us in the evening (myself and my buddy Dave) one in the middle of the night on Friday (Diverbrian) and one early Saturday morning (SCORE ResQ) to meet and dive on Saturday. You are hereby invited to join us for good diving, good eats and if you want to, a little camping. I'll have my small 5th wheel trailer and pickup and a large pot of Venison Chili to share, along with some "adult" beverages after the dive day is over.

How's that sound?

Thank you very much for the offer and all of the information! I'm still not quite sure what my travel plans are and when I'll be going through the area but if I'm through this weekend I'll try to identify you (I'll try looking for the folks with the chili!). If I don't run into you have a great dive weekend!

Each of the quaries have their individual charms and drawbacks.

Gilboa - Good for advanced skills, particularly deep. They also have the most stuff to look at, if you like old cars and stuff. The plane is probably the best of the bunch. Gilboa also has lots of fish, probably more than I have seen at the other two combined. Down side to Gilboa, parking is horrible, and getting in and out can be very crowded at the docks, not to mention the stairs and the slippery conditions. Up at the main office there are real restrooms and showers, but not real close to the dive areas.

Portage - I dove there once, and they considered it a good visibility day with almost 20' of vis. Platforms are very poor, if there is a class there forget it, the silt on the bottom is at least an inch thick and stirs up very easily. They do have some nice features, there is a volley ball area, and I understand they have a beach (but haven't seen it). Parking is actually pretty good.

Whitestar - Shallow quarry (max 60 feet) that has been converted into a park. It actually has a nice looking beach, although its closed for the year now. The parking at Whitestar is very convienent, lots of picknic tables and getting in the water is easy with a giant stride off the wall, or wade in at what looks more like a boat ramp. They also have a close by concession stand and air fills. They have three good size platforms for classes. Definitely the more relaxed of the three places. There are some things sunk that you can go look at. I generally go looking for crawfish and other things.

All three have vis problems, on Sundays when classes are there, vis can be real bad. I think of the quaries as a place to train new divers, practice skills and hang out with dive buddies between trips to someplace nice.

At Gilboa and Whitestar you should able to find someone to dive with just about any weekend. The one time I was at Portage it was pretty empty, but that may have been just then. My favorite is Whitestar just because it is so much more relaxed, with Gilboa a close second. Portage gives me the creeps for some reason so I don't go there, but that's me, my dive buddies kid me about it.

RPanick once bubbled...
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All three have vis problems, on Sundays when classes are there, vis can be real bad. I think of the quaries as a place to train new divers, practice skills and hang out with dive buddies between trips to someplace nice.

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I've been at Gilboa and the vis has been over 50ft. The vis problems come from bad technique near the bottom. If ya can get there during the week, or early on Saturday, ya should get decent vis. Once the bottom walkers show up, it's a different place.

Bottom walkers are a problem at all three places, and weekends are indeed the worst, because that's when the classes are usually around.

In fairness to new divers, learning boyancy control, in a heavy wet suit isn't that easy for most people. Boyancy in a pool is easy, in the quary its a different thing.

That brings up an interesting thought. I picked up boyancy control pretty quick, and figured out you can fly above the bottom real early, without stiring anything up. Down side of that is that since I really didn't "learn it", I really don't have techniques to tell new divers. Does anyone have any suggestions for teaching new divers boyancy skills to shorten up the process.

Taxshark once bubbled...
I am planning a trip to visit family in Ohio and Indiana over the next few weekends. I was just curious if anyone has experience diving at Portage or Gilboa quarries in Ohio. In particular I am interested if there is generally a good number of divers at these sites on weekends in September/early October that I could buddy with if I just "showed up." Thanks for any information you might have!

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FWIW, I prefer Gilboa to Dutch. Perhaps some of that is because Gilboa is closer for me but it's still a 4-5 hour drive from where I am in Canada vs about 8 hours to Dutch. I visit about 6-8 times per year including one trip in November to help decorate and sink a Christmas Tree on the Grumman's wing.

The shallow side is more interesting, and the viz can be great if you get in before the students hit on Saturday morning. If you want to go deep and look at nothing but dark cold rocks and silt, you can go over the wall and hit 120', although there are rumours of spots with 140' depth. It's a neat place if you are into gear watching. Scooters, sidemounts, techy types with deco bottles, you name it. It has DIR, DIR-L, DIR wannabe, anti-DIR, Strokes, strokes, superstrokes, and Team 3 divers. There are Killer Koi and Monster Trout. There are imaginary 6' long Paddlefish (they must be imaginary cuz I've never seen one). There's a sunken forest to swim thru and varied rock walls to cruise along at depths from 10' to 110'.

This coming weekend we plan to get there by early afternoon for a few good viz dives and perhaps a night dive, then back first thing on Saturday to see the other side of the viz coin.

You are pretty safe in expecting to find divers there. It's a very popular place. People aren't shy about asking if they can tag along on some of our dives. Little do some of them know that we only pretend to be competent divers. Don't be fooled into thinking that every 7' hose means a good diver. 8)

If you make it this weekend, watch for a black Olds minivan with Ontario plates. Say hello.

JohnF