Dive 183 - Portage Quarry in June

Yesterday Rob and I headed off to Portage Quarry, Ohio to do some diving.

We got there around 7pm after being stuck in traffic on 275 South due to MDOT closing 2 of three lanes. Thank you MDOT, every year it seems you have close lanes on 275 and 75 backing up traffic headed to and from Ohio.

But back to diving.

We suited up, including attaching the P-valves as we were planning for a long dive, and a long dive it was.

First we dropped down to 20 feet to a platform and did valve drills and then worked with a stage bottle - passing it back and forth, switching over to it, shutting it back down and passing it off again. At 20 feet the viz was great and temps were about 60 with the surface a warm 70.

We then did another valve drill, then dropped to about 38 feet and did an ascent drill - going up 3 feet at a time, holding position at each stop and then heading up another 3 feet and it went perfectly.

At 30 feet the thermocline was not only cold, dropping the temperature to 55 F, but also causing milky visibility so you couldn't see the bottom at 50 feet or much of a distance.

We wanted to go find the Cessna at 50 feet and after swimming around the rock wall of the quarry without any luck, we found a line, followed it down and found the Cessna. Yes, the viz was bad enough that you could barely see an airplane in front of your face.

We then headed back as we could tell it was getting dark out, did a slow ascent and finished up the dive.

Total dive time: 103 minutes!
Average depth was 28 feet.

Portage Quarry is a great place to go diving. Reasonably conveniently located, friendly staff, decent amount of stuff to see and good depths for skills practice.

We then went to BW3's for wings and beer to celebrate our excellent dive and got back home at 1 am.