4 Responses to “Pennyroyal”

1. admin says:

   June 3, 2009 at 3:53 am

   Pennyroyal 5/25/09(Memorial Day

   Original Post by Terfmop on ScubaToys
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   My first thought upon rolling into Pennyroyal, was “where is everyone??” The day was forecast for rain but other than a little sprinkle, the weather was great. This was my 2nd consecutive week in the water, last week was at Blue Springs in Waldron , IN this week I hit the road down south to Pennyroyal.

   I counted maybe 6 or 7 other divers total during our day there. One giant stride off the little wooden floating dock and we made our way first to the 20′ platform to make sure everything was adjusted before we descended to the Blue Dolphin.

   Tom in his 5mm and me in my 7mm felt the thermocline give us a good “WHAT NOW!” at 30′. The temps went from the 60ish at the surface to the mid 40’s at around 35ish’. When we got to the bottom our bottom temp was 43 degrees. I was thankful for my full 7mm and I know Tom had to be chillin (literally) in the 5mm. Outside of a drysuit, nothing like a full bladder will do the trick to perk up the wetsuit temp….just rememebr to flush . 28 minutes later we surfaced.

   The second dive was going to try to be another deep dive, but already being chilled form the first dive, we altered our plan. Instead, we swam just at the thermocline along the wall and then over to the shallow end to gawk at the sunken stuff.

   The third dive was intended to look at the christmas tree forest on the other side of the quarry. We did a surface swim over to the other side and dropped down. I went a bit deeper than Tom on this dive, looking at only a few dead trees hanging off the side of the quarry walls. My deepest was 54′ and it was still 43 degrees at that spot. We again meandered around to the shallow end to look at the sunken things.

   Overall, yes the temps were a bit on the cool side, but the visibility wasn’t too bad, I’d say on average 15-20′. I am surprised I didn’t see more fish swimming around though.
2. snagel says:

   May 16, 2009 at 5:59 am

   Original Post by tstormdiver on ScubaBoard 5/16/09

   Right now, unless you want to go deep, Pennyroyal’s surface viz isn’t much from all the rain we’ve had recently. I dove there last weekend (May 9th). I stayed shallow on my dives. The viz from the surface to about 10 ft was absolute 0. From 10 ft to the bottom of the shallows was about 10- 15 ft. I talked t some divers who went deeper & they said that below 40 ft it was nearly crystal clear. The second dive only lasted about 30 seconds, as I discovered that I had failed to completely zip my drysuit up. It quickly became a wetsuit; a very cold wetsuit. If the rains will stop, viz will probably return to the surface in a couple of weeks. I will be doing some check out dives on Sun. & will be there Sat. & Sun (camping) Memorial Day Weekend, if you’re at all interested. Since I’m off work 3/5 weekends I plan to be at Pennyroyal quite a bit this summer.
3. snagel says:

   July 3, 2008 at 11:18 am

   Submitted by Scbagrrl74 – from ScubaToys Forum:

   First of all, I have to say Wow!! We dove Pennyroyal on 6/29 and were quite impressed. The first thing that you will notice when you go to Pennyroyal is the staff! They were all super helpful, Chris even made us a hotel reservation the day before and saved us ten bucks!

   We did 3 dives, the first we followed the rock wall around the quarry. Vis was about 30+ feet at a depth of around 80ft.

   The 2nd dive we checked out the “attractions” in the “busy” area. Lots of cool stuff including a UFO to play. Vis was lowered a bit; there were several students in the water.

   Our 3rd dive we just piddled around, followed the wall for awhile, watched some fish, and took in a few more sites. This dive vis was much better than #2 we waited a little while before getting in and most everyone had already left; there were only 4 divers in the water including us!

   We do plan to return to Pennyroyal again as time permits; it was a six hour drive for us!
4. snagel says:

   June 2, 2008 at 10:28 pm

   We had plans to go to Mermet, but once we heard about the terrible viz we decided to drive the extra 80 miles to Penny Royal. One of the best decisions we made in a long time. This was the first time we dove the quarry located in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. One in our group was finishing up a dry suit class on Sunday at Mermet, so we went back to Mermet on Sunday, but the diving on Saturday was absolutely fabulous at Penny Royal.

   Viz was atleast 30 feet maybe more. We didn’t attempt any deep dives because we were all new to the drysuit thing. The attractions are located in shallower water 30-40 feet. I was amazed at the visibility of the quarry. Very good. The water was a little on the colder side, mid 50′s.

   Dennis, owner, and his son, Kyle are great people. They explained the quarry to us and came and talked to us during the surface intervals. They suggested a great steakhouse in town (can’t remember the name). Great steak – 2 inches thick and cooked to perfection. If you visit the quarry definately check this place out – Dennis can tell the name.

   Accomodations: They have a snack shack that serves burgers and such, a changing room, that needs a little repair, and no running water (johnny on the spots).

   Really my only gripe is that they don’t clean the attractions – a lot of silt built up on the motorcycle and boats and such.

   All in all a great day of diving and definately much better viz at this time than Mermet – well worth the extra hour and a half drive.

   S. Nagel