Dive 31 : Haigh Quarry, Kankakee, Illinois

Dive No. 31 of 236

Date Aug 8, 1999

Bottom Time
To Date	16:48
This Dive	0:13
Cumulative Time	17:01

Location Haigh Quarry, Kankakee, Illinois

Time IN 11:15

Time OUT 11:29

SI 0:00	PG		PG B

49' DEPTH			15ft STOP

		0:13

Air Temp 75F

Water Temp 48F

Visibility 1'-12'

Buddy Lily

Dive Chart

Notes

This was a practice dive before our trip to Hawaii. Plus, our friend Ling was finishing her checkout dives today so we went to cheer her on as well.
Haigh Quarry was much smaller than Racine Quarry, but interesting anyway. Visibility sucked once again, plus it gets cold at depth. Dives like this make us really appreciate Cozumel and other warm water locations. The amount of extra gear necessary for cold water, plus you get cold anyway, make for a very unpleasant experience.
The visibility was certainly nothing great. It was as low as 1 foot up to about 12 feet in the deeper sections. Buoyancy control was VERY important as the bottom is all silt and just getting close to it causes all the silt to fly up and reduce visibility further.
I used 28lbs of weight, which was obviously WAY too much. In addition, the BCD I rented was leaking through the inflater button. It made maintaining my buoyancy impossible. As soon as I put enough air in to level off, it would leak out and moments later I'm sinking like a rock.
Lily wanted to go up fairly soon due to the cold and my mask started flooding and I couldn't keep it clear, so I was all for that. The two Marks decided to go up to about 30ft and stayed there a few more minutes.
We some quite a few Bluegills and we found that pipe that's on the map of the quarry. There was a thermocline at about 20 feet and another one around 40 feet.

Click on thumbnail for a full-size picture.

A panoromic view of the Haigh Quarry.
Viewed: 162 times.

Here's the group slowly getting ready for our first dive in the quarry. From left to right we have Mark Minsky, Lily and Mark Jockel. Ling was out doing her second checkout dive.
Viewed: 267 times.

Here's a shot of Lily showing off her new 7mil two-piece wetsuit.
Viewed: 349 times.

A candid shot of the group getting ready.
Viewed: 184 times.

Picture of one of the Bluegills that are common to this quarry. A hood is recommended as they have been known to bite ears.
Viewed: 132 times.

Here's Mark Minsky on our first dive.
Viewed: 151 times.

Some bigger fish. Not sure what this is, probably a Bass of some kind.
Viewed: 209 times.

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