Quarries - What's up with that?

[TDiddy]

Quarry diving is better than no diving! I've made plenty at Willow Springs and Dutch Springs. Agree with just about all the previous comments.

 

[Kayakingphotos]

If you want to see fish in a quarry, go to Gilboa Quarry in Ohio. They have a couple there...... Just make sure to wear a hood and gloves. Otherwise your fingers and ears will become fish food.....

 

[BlueTrin]

So, I've been watching YouTube videos about diving in quarries, and I don't get it. A few of them have some fish, and some algal mats, but certainly not to the extent that I have seen in, say, Fishing With Luiza's snorkel trip in a river. Mostly, what I see is abandoned cars and other land-based junk, like visiting an underwater junkyard. If everything I can see in a quarry dive is something I can also see in a junkyard on land, why would I go to the trouble of diving there? What have I missed in these videos?

It’s my closest option to practice, I live in London. If I want to go to the sea, the closest is Brighton/Newhaven and that’s more than 2:30 hours away

Also I would pay only £10 for entrance and £10 per tank fill.

 

[TMHeimer]

10 pounds for a fill (Air) seems a little steep.

 

[Schwob]

This is what it looks like in April. Camera work isn't so good, but you get the idea. If you watch carefully, you can see the rare Hollis Explorer in action!

Clearly now, the rain was gone indeed. Stellar vis.

 

[happy-diver]

If you're good, they may allow you to do some quarry ballet in the quarry


and if you're really good the quarry people may permit you a culturally intriguing orchestral accompaniment


Live!

next to the quarry

 

[stretchthepenn]

What you've missed in the videos is the experience, the practice, the learning, the extending of a person's diving repertoire/abilities.

I get it though, I really do. Until last year I had no desire to dive "cold" or "low vis" or "no fish/coral" dives. Last year I decided to "deal with it" at the local quarry because I wanted to take some classes and didn't want to take a vacation for that purpose, so I ended up at the local quarry. It was late fall, so water temps were up in the 70's at the surface, but in the 40's once you got deep, so I surely wasn't looking forward to that, having only dived tropical waters or Florida springs (a minimum 5 hour drive away) type diving previously. What I found diving there for the classes and for fun was that I became a better diver.

Agreed, agreed. You and I (and @Rollin Bonz) all go to the same quarry, and for really the same reasons. Practice, practice, practice, and there's always a challenge available.

In particular, I like the challenge of being able to go deep; since the bottom goes to and beyond recreational limits, and it's dark down there, I can putz around and get quality experience that will feed into tech diving. And on top of that, the management doesn't fuss about solo diving, as long as you've got your Self-Reliant card on file. In this case, quarry diving is quite the win.

 

[Rollin Bonz]

Agreed, agreed. You and I (and @Rollin Bonz) all go to the same quarry, and for really the same reasons. Practice, practice, practice, and there's always a challenge available.

In particular, I like the challenge of being able to go deep; since the bottom goes to and beyond recreational limits, and it's dark down there, I can putz around and get quality experience that will feed into tech diving. And on top of that, the management doesn't fuss about solo diving, as long as you've got your Self-Reliant card on file. In this case, quarry diving is quite the win.

Indeed.

And many scuba divers just LOVE to dive, pretty much anywhere that's wet will do, and pretty much any conditions. 5 hours from ocean/warm water diving... You do what you gotta do to dive (One Sunday last month the surface temp was 32 degree, overcast and spitting snow, but the quarry was open, so I dove ) .
And the quarry is CLOSE (45 mins for me).
And CHEAP. (With the season pass, this year I will average about $2.91 per dive at the quarry, including air )

 

[Ana]

If you are an ocean person there's no answer to your question.

I don't get it either but that's fine. Don't think it would be any good to share the ocean with all the quarry divers, they are too many.

 

[lowviz]

If you are an ocean person there's no answer to your question.

“There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.”

That is a quote, but I'm not giving the author credit here. I don't agree with a lot of what he says but, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again."

7 Joseph Campbell Quotes to Inspire You to "Follow Your Bliss"