Questions about Quail Run Diver's Quarry in Rolla MO

[rottielover]

:06:

My wife and I have only been to Mermet Springs in Southern IL so far. Our instructor said that Quail Run is at about 950 ft above sea level, and we don't have Altitude training. The cut-off is 1000ft, do you have to have altitude training to dive this quarry?

Is it a pretty fun dive? We live in St. Louis, and Mermet is a 3 hour drive, Rolla is just shy of a 2 hour drive. I have been to Rolla many times because my company has our manufacturing plant in Rolla, but I've never heard of Quail Run until we started diving.

Anything else you guys can talk about this site would be great!

 

[manard]

My wife and I have only been to Mermet Springs in Southern IL so far. Our instructor said that Quail Run is at about 950 ft above sea level, and we don't have Altitude training. The cut-off is 1000ft, do you have to have altitude training to dive this quarry?

Is it a pretty fun dive? We live in St. Louis, and Mermet is a 3 hour drive, Rolla is just shy of a 2 hour drive. I have been to Rolla many times because my company has our manufacturing plant in Rolla, but I've never heard of Quail Run until we started diving.

Anything else you guys can talk about this site would be great!

...but Mermet is probably the better dive site. Quail Run has a max depth of about 30 ft (it's where I did my OW and have been a couple times for "fun", so I only have some experience with it, about 12 dives), and the viz rarely exceeds about 10 feet this time of year. If you are going to work on skills, generally develop underwater confidence, etc., then it's worthwhile. If you are going for underwater scenery, think again....

But that's just my $0.02, YMMV.

 

[HammerNoMore]

:06:
My wife and I have only been to Mermet Springs in Southern IL so far. Our instructor said that Quail Run is at about 950 ft above sea level, and we don't have Altitude training. The cut-off is 1000ft, do you have to have altitude training to dive this quarry?

Nobody dives QR as an altitude dive.

Is it a pretty fun dive? We live in St. Louis, and Mermet is a 3 hour drive, Rolla is just shy of a 2 hour drive. I have been to Rolla many times because my company has our manufacturing plant in Rolla, but I've never heard of Quail Run until we started diving.

Not sure where you are in STL, but Quail Run is about 75 minutes for me in west county. If you go, get there early and be in the water at 8. After the students muck up the vis it's not worth it. It's shallow but I enjoy diving along the wall.

James

 

[rottielover]

Yea, that was the main idea, to get some more diving under our belts and in our log book before we head off to Cozumel and our AOW dives (going to combine vacation and our AOW cert dives).

What is the temp like at max depth? Is the Altitude an issue? My wife and I both have dive computers with alt adjustments, I'm wondering if we should set the Alt. adjust to +1 (1000ft - 2000ft) since Quail Run is at 950ft ? We don't have the high alt training class, so I'm just wondering if it's an issue?

 

[manard]

Yea, that was the main idea, to get some more diving under our belts and in our log book before we head off to Cozumel and our AOW dives (going to combine vacation and our AOW cert dives).

What is the temp like at max depth? Is the Altitude an issue? My wife and I both have dive computers with alt adjustments, I'm wondering if we should set the Alt. adjust to +1 (1000ft - 2000ft) since Quail Run is at 950ft ? We don't have the high alt training class, so I'm just wondering if it's an issue?

Echo James above on the altitude question. Google Earth (a neat little toy) gives the altitude as 1066 ft at the quarry (at 37 deg 57 min 59.99 sec N, 91 deg 43 min 39.60 sec W), but I've never heard anyone who dove it as an altitude dive (but I'm still a newbie too). If you want to make the altitude adjustment on your computer, all the better as it's more conservative. As for temperature, looking at my computer, I had 66 deg F at 28 feet on 16 July, but we weren't at that depth for too long (only took the 3 mils).

 

[steve2281]

I've never been there, but if it is 30ft max the altitude won't be a factor. You won't get anywhere close to NDL.

 

[rottielover]

Cool sounds great, thanks for the quick reply's.

As I said, my wife and I want to work on some skills a bit before we go to Coz this Oct. Since I'm already familier with the Rolla area (been there a lot on company business) I thought it would be an OK place to try.

However, methinks that Mermet may be in our future instead, that place was just a blast for our OW cert dives. We signed up for the Treasure Hunt comming up at Mermet, and I think we're planning on staying for the Sunday afterword to get a fun dive or 2 in before heading back home.

Hope to see some of you guys there! P.S. I'm going to try and bring my 3'x5' "Surrender the Booty" Pirate flag and I'm going to try and remember to wear my "Divers and Pirates get all the booty" t-shirt.

Safe Diving!

 

[theskull]

Hey Rottie,

I'll be at the Treasure Hunt dive at Mermet, also, working as a volunteer. And will be staying for some fun-diving on Sunday. I'm on staff at The Dive Shop of St. Louis, you can ask any of The Dive Shop participants to intro you to TheSkull and they'll send you my way. See ya there,

theskull

p.s. You really must drive past Mermet some time and try Cerulean Springs in Kentucky--another hour drive, but warm shallow water and some good diving. And as for Rolla, drive on past and go to Table Rock Lake in Branson!

 

[diverbob]

Hey Rottie,

I'll be at the Treasure Hunt dive at Mermet, also, working as a volunteer. And will be staying for some fun-diving on Sunday. I'm on staff at The Dive Shop of St. Louis, you can ask any of The Dive Shop participants to intro you to TheSkull and they'll send you my way. See ya there,

theskull

p.s. You really must drive past Mermet some time and try Cerulean Springs in Kentucky--another hour drive, but warm shallow water and some good diving. And as for Rolla, drive on past and go to Table Rock Lake in Branson!

If you want deeper dives, right around Cerulean is another quarry called Penny Royal. Awesome diving there for a quarry.