Why dive in a quarry? Should you log them

[diver0008]

So what you are saying, in essence, is that if a dive does ot have the features that YOU look for in a dive, then it should not count as a dive. Is that right?

No. You misunderstand, a little aggressively too.

 

[Marie13]

Deleted

 

[diver0008]

...not some ocean only snob.

Which oceans have you dove in?

 

[CptTightPants21]

No. You misunderstand, a little aggressively too.

Where do you dive? 1000 Islands or vacation/Caribbean?

 

[RayfromTX]

Well, this has drifted totally off topic but I will say that you can judge the body of water against any number of parameters. People ask why I would dive in Lake Travis after doing most of my dives in the Caribbean. I ask them if they swim in Lake Travis and they say sure. If swimming on the surface is fun how can scuba not be? Scuba is multidimensional underwater flight. It is challenging in many ways and overcoming challenges is what humans do to bring meaning and interest to their life.

There is a site in west Texas where they dive a flooded Atlas missile silo. It is literally a vertical shaft in the ground with poor visibility.

I ride my bike for long distances, sometimes 200 miles at a time. Those that don't question my sanity. I don't question the judgement of my friends that do 750 mile bike rides because I realize that I just don't have a frame of reference to understand. That makes me ignorant. It does not make them crazy.

As far as logging dives, we are our own judges of what constitutes a dive. I have heard of time and depth limits and I find that to be arbitrary and silly. If it is a dive you know it. Hell you could log your pool dives and I wouldn't say a word. If you change your mind about what counts later, you know that too. I don't believe anyone here was questioning whether someone else's dive was legitimate. I think that tone is often added where it is not intended when we read the posts of others. I try to keep my posts succinct(fail) and sometimes it makes me seem to be scolding. I seldom am at least not intentionally.

Marie- you have my respect. I would not have convinced myself to do what you have done. Just WOW grrrrrl. I can't wait to read of your impressions of your first Caribbean dives on a reef filled with awesome fish of all kinds.

 

[stuartv]

I bought a drysuit within a year of OW certification. I wanted to dive in cold quarry waters year round, and it certainly served its purpose. Over time, as I ventured into tec training and technical diving, I found that I was diving dry 90%+ of the time. My general practice - if the water temp was below 73 degrees, I went dry. The only wet diving I did was teaching OW, or so it seemed. One vivid drysuit diving memory - diving the Oriskany (bottom temp of 64 degrees), over the 4th of July weekend, 2 years in a row. And, sweltering on the surface as I suited up, pouring sweat into my 'dry' suit.

Sounds ... familiar... I dived the Oriskany 2 weeks ago. The first day, I got out completely soaked. Apparently, my undershirt sleeve got caught in my wrist seal and wicked water into my suit for the whole 66 minute dive. Fortunately, the water was reasonably warm, so it was no big deal. Diving dry was mainly for redundant buoyancy anyway.

The second day, I was not soaked but very damp at the end. I wore my Merino wool base layer for that dive because the deco hang the day before got just a little cool by the end. I'm pretty sure the suit didn't leak at all the second day. The "damp" was all sweat, thanks to the June Florida sun. Worth it, though. The deco hang was a lot more comfortable, even though the second dive was 77 minutes.

Having never dived in a quarry, the question is sincere in its ignorance. I've heard that they are often used for certification training / testing. I had not pictured them as actual dive destinations, in lieu of a better word, like oceans, lakes, caves, etc. They seem more like diving in the deep end of a pool to me. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I just wondered if this was the kind of thing one would log.

My local quarry is a small lake. It's 90+ feet deep, 37F on the bottom, and the viz is usually anywhere from 1 foot to 15 or 20 feet. If I dive in that, why wouldn't I log it?

Nice post. I still don't quite get it though. A challenge is not really what I associate with the joy of diving. Diving in dark, cold, bad visibility, etc. surely has some benefits as a training exercise, but I am missing the point if it is otherwise. All that challenge for what? My personal enjoyment of diving centers around seeing things; life, topography, sunken things. I really do not see the point of diving in hard or lousy conditions with nothing to see. What am I missing?

I dive my local quarry a number of times per year and it is definitely not for the conditions or the things to see (of which there are a few). It is to practice and test new gear and configurations. And for training. In my mind, it still counts as a dive in my log book. The only dives in my log book that I don't count are pool dives.

Rubbish to you but clearly not everyone. Dives in the local quarries - cold, maybe dark, questionable viz - are good for those of us who want to dive the Great Lakes.

I'm diving virtually every weekend, 2-4 dives. $20 entry fee to quarry plus gas and air fills. That's a bargain over an ocean trip I might be able to do once a year. I have Lake Michigan in my backyard and get a 2 tank dive for $110 and a little more than an hour's drive. Lake Huron is 6-8 hours. I'll be diving there in late July. I'm a native Great Lakes gal, not some ocean only snob.

If Lake Michigan is in your backyard, why dive in your quarry (other than when required for a class)? Is it just a cost-savings thing?

 

[Marie13]

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[diver0008]

I am getting a clearer picture of why people dive quarries. Still does not seem like the kind of dive that I would log personally, but that is easy for me to say as I will probably never dive in one, and at least now I get why others might. Thanks for the replies.

 

[Doby45]

One particular quarry dive that was very fun and challenging was the first time my buddy and I went to the bottom (it was th ebottom as far as we knew, found out later it got deeper). We had just finished up a dive to about 80ft and were getting out at the deep end dock. Well, low and behold my bud is taking off his hand mounted light (think it was DGX600 in a sock) and the light was brand new to him. So as he was taking it off I heard it drop and hit his BC and then bounce onto the deck and finally a nice "PLOOOOP" sound as it hit the water. We both looked over and could see the bolt snap glisten on its way down. I immediately told him he was a dumbass and started laughing. His face was priceless and he turned and said "We can get it!"

We decided to go ahead and eat lunch, get our tanks filled and have a solid hour surface interval. Our plan was to drop straight down where we had seen the light go down and either hit the bottom and collect the light and then head back up to a reasonable depth and surface after 25-30min. Keep in mind we had been down to the 130' platform before and knew that is is cold as hell and darker than your ex's heart down there. We start our descent facing each other in the "skydiver" position so that we can monitor each other and either of us could thumb the dive at any time. As we get started buddy dumps everything and starts to drop like a rock, I dump my wing and follow, finally "catching" up to him as we head down. The feet are ticking off I am thinking in my mind, damn it is dark. Once we hit about 130' the wall we were heading down started to slope in toward the middle of the quarry. We follow the curve down a bit and continue to look for the light. Just as I am thinking this thing is lost in the silt, I see buddy dart away from me about 10' and create a tiny mushroom cloud of silt. In my mind I am thinking "Oh damn, he hit the bottom!" Then I see his figure emerge from the little silt cloud and he is heading toward me with the biggest crap eating grin on his face and in his hand he has the light!! We ended up at about 145', collected the light and thumbed the dive. We came up to about 60' and played around on the bus for a while and then surfaced after our 5min safety stop. Total dive time was like 27min and it was great. We STILL to this day talk about that dive because it was memorable AND it was in a quarry.

 

[stuartv]

I am getting a clearer picture of why people dive quarries. Still does not seem like the kind of dive that I would log personally.

I don't mean this in an attacking way at all. I'm just curious. What is your personal criteria for deciding what you would log versus not? I enjoy learning how different people view diving, so my interest in learning what your criteria are and how they would (possibly) result in not logging a quarry dive is genuine.