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tbrown · 02-20-2003, 02:46 PM,

I am contemplating my biggest dive purchase to date, and am hoping for some feed back. What is the minimum depth, if any, that is a deciding factor to dive or not dive a site. For me vis and proximity is usually more of a factor then depth, but I was curious to others opionions. I ask because I am working on buying a quarry, and just found out today that it is only 30-40 ft deep. I was hoping for 60-80 ft of depth, but the vis seems to be around 15-20 ft and having my dive site in my own backyard would totaly kick a@@. Maybe I can dive with a shovel. : Smile

MNLakeDiver · 02-20-2003, 02:52 PM,

even at 30 feet I would do it and sink an opstical course to do boyancy training in ( I'm sure we can find planty of divers to help test it out Big Grin

)

Punky · 02-20-2003, 03:09 PM,

I agree, proximity and visibility are a big plus. You can have just as much fun at 30 feet as you can at 80 as long as there are things to do and/or see. How much surface area does this quarry pond have?

**freedivernd** · 02-20-2003, 03:16 PM,

Surface area would come into play as Punky is suggesting. If it was 10' in diameter, then I would want 60+, preferably 80+ feet (not unlike the swimming pool I'd like to have), but if it was a mini-lake then 20' of depth would work, seems like that's were divers spend most of the time anyway. If it would have fish to see that would be plus.. If it's really close to your back yard - how can you miss? Any chance you could heat it and keep it open year round?

Fred

Chris · 02-20-2003, 03:28 PM,

Well, when I dive Wazee I am usually in about 30' of water and might go down around 40+ occasionally. Most of what there is to see is between 20' and 35' though. Sounds awesome!

Punky · 02-20-2003, 03:55 PM,

Just a cautionary note, maybe you've thought of this.
Have you considered having the water tested to be sure there are no pollutants or toxic chemicals that would prevent
you from using it if you acquire the quarry?
Don't want to sound negative because I think it's a great idea.
Keep us posted, if you do get it a pond clean up and warming party might be in order.

tpscuba · 02-20-2003, 04:30 PM,

How big is the quarry? also on obtaining a quarry who has the rights to the property under it? the reason I asked is that when we put dive sites down on the Gilbert pit and we knew that Gilbert owned everything around the pit that question came up when we applied for permits to put articles in the water. We lucked out and Gilbert owned the bottom of the pit.
This becomes an issue if a company another individual owns the bottom due to mineral rights. They canm come back in at anytime and put it back in use and can request that articles be removed.

tbrown · 02-20-2003, 08:34 PM,

The more I check into this the more excited I get. The larger ones seem to be the shallowest 10-15. Some of the smaller ones are 1-5 acres and would be more to my leaning. The biggest problem is that developers have found out about this too, and waterfront property is brutal. The bigger ones are in the 7 figure range, so that pretty much puts me out. I figure 5 acres is plenty big enough to play, although I'm hoping more for price. The DNR is the actual owner of the quarry and the rights under it, but the land surrounding it is open season. I don't know what they would say about a platform, fish cribs or other goodies, but I figure playing dumb has always served me in the past. I mean gosh, how could I know some renegades sank a boat and a bunch of other stuff in the water. ;D Heck, they seem to let farmers dump all kinds of stuff so I'm hoping it won't be a problem. If I wind up pulling it off, I will sell my house and build a new one on the property so it literally will be my backyard. I very rarely go deeper than 40 feet either, so the depth factor isn't a deal killer, it would just be nice to be able to go deeper for training/practice. I'd thought of the water quality issue, but I beleive that would fall to the DNR to take care of, but I'd better check to be sure. The biggest problem I can see will be staying out of a bidding war, but I still think it's doable. Of course it will certainly make it harder to justify getting any more gear for awhile.

tpscuba · 02-21-2003, 10:35 AM,

I know the excitird feeling, wait til you start putting things down underwater. That is real exciting. Our firt project was a training platform weighted about 800 pounds. The next two were the rail speeders, they were 6000 pounds each. Our deep diving platform had a large pump that was 2000 plus.
We were donated some more things which we are working on. The bus we are putting in 70 ft not too far from the deep diving platform. we are going to stay in the 40 ft range for the smaller articles and we are put out bouys for the site to make finding easier. We have a lot of jounior divers so we are accomodating them a bit more plus the thermo sets up at about 30 ft in late summer so this puts the tops of the articles a little close to warmer water.
Keep us in formed on your project and if you need some help with lifts contact us our info is in the dive shop directory
Rick Tall Pine Scuba

igotoofar · 02-26-2003, 09:55 AM,

I wonder if you could stock the pit with certain fish or plant life to help increase the visibility???