Rock Quarry Diving in North Carolina

While North Carolina's famed, shipwreck-strewn "Graveyard of the Atlantic" stands as the state's main diving attraction, the interior of the state is dotted with abandoned, flooded quarries that have found a new lease on life through scuba diving. Relative to diving from the North Carolina coast and in the open ocean, diving in the state's quarries offer a very different underwater environment.

  1. Sites

    • North Carolina has several quarries open to scuba diving. These include the Blue Stone Dive Resort, James M. Robertson Quarry, the American Quarry, Fantasy Lake and Lake Norman. The Robertson, Norman and American Quarries are owned by the Piedmont Diving and Rescue Association and are open only to members and guests of that organization. Fantasy Lake and Blue Stone are both open to the public and charge admission fees.

    Features

    • As rock quarries are full of freshwater rather than saltwater, the fish life present is of the freshwater variety. Instead of a fat, spiny grouper, a diver might see a catfish or largemouth bass instead. Many quarries also keep their own version of "shipwrecks," namely the hulks of discarded airplanes, buses, fire engines and cars. Blue Stone has many such wrecks, as well as a shaft bored horizontally into the rock, creating a man-made underwater cave.

    Conditions

    • The water in rock quarries is usually clearer than that of lakes or rivers because the walls are solid rock. The bottom of the quarry is rock as well, although over time flooded quarry bottoms develop a layer of sediment. Quarries also have no currents, although they are marked by stark thermoclines, layers of water divided by sudden changes in temperature. North Carolina's quarries are no exception. Most of them have 20-foot visibility, while Blue Stone boasts 30-foot visibility, and all are marked by strong thermoclines.

    Benefits

    • North Carolina's rock quarries offer a controlled diving environment. Surrounded by land and with no currents to speak of, the conditions are ideal for training and dealing with accidents, and many North Carolina diving schools use the quarries for dive training. These same conditions provide seasoned divers with a safer workshop for experimenting with new equipment or new techniques. Finally, for residents of western North Carolina or the surrounding states, the quarries offer a more convenient diving venue than the coast.

    Considerations

    • As the rock quarries of North Carolina are flooded with fresh water, they are not as buoyant as the saltwater most divers are used to. A diver venturing into a North Carolina rock quarry for the first time should conduct a buoyancy check before starting her actual dive, and add and subtract weights as necessary.