North Alabama quarry dive report (9/23/06)

[mike_s]

Several folks from the 3M Dive Club, the SEAS Club, and Scubaboarder's all met up this Saturday for a quarry dive at a local privately owned quarry.

Weather was great and conditions for diving were great also. We had a thunderstorm blow in though right as we got int he water and got out with reports of thunder as we didn't know how much lightening would occur. The storm quickly blew over and back in the water we went.

We got in an about 60 minute dive with a max depth of 57 feet. Rocketman found his 'hole in the rocks' and stuck his arm (with wrist computer) in it again and acheieved the max depth of 60' as he did a few weeks ago.

Water was nice and around 76f except in the small deeper hole where it dropped into the 60's.

From Scubaboard, besides myself, was RocketMan, DiverAL, and Darcy. This was Darcy's first quarry dive since moving north from the beach. She did very well. The best find of the day went to her also as she found an unopened 25+ year old Coors can with the old "pull ring" tab on it. I haven't seen those in at least 25 years. (yeah, if our best find was a beer can, that shows there wasn't tha much in this quarry. We still had a good time though.)

Also there were several members of the 3M Dive Club and SEAS Club, so it was a good outing.

As soon as I get the underwater pics from John, I'll post them. I took some above water pics and will get them posted also.

Thanks to the 3M Dive Club for hosting this event, providing lunch, and arranging use of the quarry.

 

[philmottrek99and02]

Mike,
Thanks for the report. When I can stay in town long enough to attend a SEAS meeting, I shall.
Howard

 

[mike_s]

Mike,
Thanks for the report. When I can stay in town long enough to attend a SEAS meeting, I shall.
Howard

Hey Howard!

Next meeting for SEAS is October 12th at 6:30pm at Greenhills Grille. I'm not sure of the speaker yet, but I think it's a dive travel specialist. I'll post more info on it when I know.

A Scubaboard member's wife (who's just learning to dive) won the $50 Gift Card door prize donated by Phil Ellis of Dive Sports at the last club meeting.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Sounds like fun, what was the visibility like?

 

[mike_s]

Sounds like fun, what was the visibility like?

I'd say about 30' vis. maybe a little more in spots.

That's pretty good for quarry diving this time of year. But the huge rainstorm yesterday I'm sure cut it down a good bit because when we dove this 'hole' 3 weeks ago, we had 50' vis.

In comparison, Madison Quarry (a.k.a. formally known as Rock Diver) has 5 to 10 foot vis right now

We should have told you earlier if you had wanted to come up...

 

[Ltstanfo]

I dove the Madison Quarry this past weekend and the visibility was 5-7 ft at best. The algae bloom is horrible right now. The surface temp was 85 degrees and the bottom temp (at 41 ft) was 78.

There was good attendance this weekend, with SDI's class and a class from Mississippi (don't know where in Mississippi).

Regards,
Ltstanfo

 

[Diveral]

Mike, Darcy, RocketMan and the other divers. We were glad you all enjoyed the picnic and the diving. Everyone had a great time and the family that owns the quarry really appreciated our efforts to take care of their quarry and clean up after ourselves. We have secured ourselves an invite for a return visit. I believe next time we should bring along some mesh bags and haul out some of the trash that we find.

I made a return to solo diving while I was there. I appreciate everyone that helped keep an eye on my kids to allow me to go diving. I got in 40 minutes of solo diving before I had to pop up and yell at the kids. I really enjoyed the dive and played on the rock ridge(reef), chased bass, and counted over 30 freshwater jellyfish durig the dive. I wish I had brought my camera as this was a great opportunity to photograph the jellies. The dive was really relaxing, however you can hear one of those tank bangers for a good ways.

The water was warmer than our last dive in the 80's with a thermocline at 38' at 76 degrees. The vis was worse around 30 feet although out in the middle where I hung around it was 40-45 feet.

I managed to give myself a black eye on the rope swing and Rocketman made a spectacular bust and had a red back for the rest of the day.

AL

 

[mike_s]

Ha! I missed you guys on the rope swing.

I also missed the jellyfish. John P. took his camera with him, maybe he gots some pics of them. I'll email him for some pics and then post them.

I got an email from John S. that dove it with us 3 weeks ago. He wanted to know if I saw the "Goodyear Reef". I thought that was pretty funny. (He was referring to the "Goodyear Reef" as the large tire pile in the north-west corner of the quarry.)

 

[darcy]

I saw the goodyear reef! The best part in my opinion was the sheer face of the quarry with the flora growing on it. It was a really diffrent dive for me. Where was the wreck again? JK! Nice to meet all of you and I'm looking forward to diving with you more in the future.

 

[SeaYoda]

You guys had better viz than I often get at the jetties .