Penny Royal Aug 11-12 Fun-dive Trip Report

[theskull]

About 20 divers from The Great American Dive Co. descended upon Penny Royal this weekend for our fun-dive event. (Midwest SCUBA was also there on Saturday for their fun-dive trip, so I got to make a few dives with DeepDiverBob, too.)

My first trip to this site was very enjoyable, with excellent visibility of 20-40 ft. (actually poorer than they typically have, but still great to me). Lots of acreage in the 70-130 ft. depth range for enjoyable diving, with a refreshing 45 F temp at those depths to reward us for suiting up in the 95 F heat on shore this weekend, and a very accommodating site manager to make our stay as pleasant as possible. I was also pleasantly surprised by the site facilities, including hyper-filtered air fills and Nitrox available--slow, but we were a bigger group than they typically get, and they are in the process of building on to the facility and hooking up a second compressor.

Our enjoyable weekend included a big BBQ lunch on Saturday--combo of shop-provided main dishes and diver-provided sides and desserts--and a Saturday night movie projected on one of the quarry walls, for those who did not join in for the night dive. It was a beautiful night dive, and I had already seen Pirates of the Carribean.

theskull

[Scuba Pete]

I have to agree, it was a great weekend of diving. Unfortunately a leaky hp hose and a splitting headache cut down on the number of dives for me, but I good time none the less.

I'd like to thank The Skull for showing me a new method of fishing for a diver. Within seconds of dropping the lure, he had a diver hooked.

The quarry was good, the water was pretty clear down deep and even the shallows weren't too bad. I wish they had a few more things to investigate, and I think they have plans to sink some more attractions in the future. The owners really make the quarry an experience though. They go out of their way to make sure you have a good time. They're always stopping by to see how things are going, if you need anything and just chat about whatevers on your mind. They stayed up until a little after 5 am sunday morning to make sure everyone had full tanks to start the day off, and were back at the quarry in time to have everything set up and ready to open by 8am.

[theskull]

. . . I'd like to thank The Skull for showing me a new method of fishing for a diver. Within seconds of dropping the lure, he had a diver hooked. . .

I wish I could lay claim to the idea; it was suggested by someone else. I was most happy to try it out though, and it did indeed work.

What could be more attractive than having dive gear raining down on you during a dive, unless it was dive gear you had lost on a previous dive? Clipping the item to the end of a reel was the brilliant part of the idea, and my line came back empty when I reeled it up, so the diver did take the bait!

theskull