Any Caves or Caverns In Maine or NH?
Just curious to see if anyone knows of any caves or caverns in Maine or New Hampshire. I am originally from Miane and will be making a trip up there next month and I though I would see if anyone knew of anything up there. I did call a local dive shop in Central Maine and he was an open water diver and knew nothing about caves or caverns, but I did ready somthing about Quarry Diving up there. Anyone have anything on this at all LOL?
True Blue Quarry in West Rutland, VT is as close as I know. A marble quarry with overhead passage ways. Very deep (175) and cold 34 degrees. However the vis is 80+ feet. Lots of luck...Ken
Nothing like in FL. There are "dry" caves, with sumps in them. It won't be easy to get dive gear to them, though.Originally Posted by sfsgt04
I realize that this thread is almost a year old but thought that I might bring it back to life as my wife and I plan on doing a repeat cave dive at True Blue Marble Quarry in West Rutland, VT next weekend. This site is an old marble quarry which features an open water quarry with several old cars and it has a number of large mine shafts for cave diving. We dove it in October 2008 as part of a weekend Vermont folliage diving trip. An excerpt from our previous trip report (I've included the referenced pictures here), "We checked out the quarry area above ground for quite a while as we eventually found the airshaft opening. We were the only folks around and sadly it is apparent that this area has become a local dumping ground. Regardless of this, the beauty of the quarry shone through as I've included a number of pictures. The first two pictures are of the open areas while the third picture is of the surface to try and show the wonderful visibility. The fourth picture is the opening of the airshaft into the mine tunnel. We entered and exited on the wooden ladder into the mine shaft. The water was 43 F at surface but at a depth of 20' it dropped to 41 F where it remained throughout. The tunnel opening began at 90' as we immediately found a gold line going into the tunnel and maintained a depth of 100' throughout. We followed the line into the tunnel for a 350' penetration. The tunnel is wide as the walls and ceiling are sharply cut marble. There are a number of old mining equipment including some tracks, a shovel and various rusted debris along the bottom. The visibility was 50' or better! We turned after 14 minutes as our total dive was 35 minutes which included 8 minutes for stops. We were both wearing doubles with EAN-32 and stayed within our 1/6ths Basic Cave Diver training limits."
Have others from this forum also dove here? It was obvious that someone has kept the cave dive site maintained with the wooden ladder and gold line.
We live about 90 minutes north of True Blue, and used to dive there quite a bit. Did our dives for our basic open water class there, in April 2001, with snow on the ground. Also did our first cavern dives there. Haven't been back for several years. (Spoiled by Florida cave diving!) Friends of ours put in the ladder years ago, not sure who if anyone is maintaining the line. There was a fatality in the overhead section a few years ago - a cave diver took a non-cave diver in - the cave diver ended up dying. The cold water (never out of the mid-40's at depth) makes easy dives considerably more complicated.
It is a popular place for people to dump things they would have to pay to get rid of at the dump - old furniture, TV's, refrigerators, etc. Then people come and shoot at the old TV's and other junk. Nothing against shooting; I'm a shooter myself. But there's a nice range a couple miles away, and the folks who do their shooting at the quarry seem to be those who don't like all the rules and safety procedures at the range. They sometimes shoot into the water - we've found quite a few spent bullets on the bottom. There have been stories of shooting at bubbles while divers were in there, but we've been there while there was shooting going on and never had any trouble. Last I knew, the landowner did not give permission for anyone to dive there, but also didn't go to any lengths to prevent access. They put some big boulders across the access road, so you have to walk a couple hundred yards. Access can be kind of muddy. Once there were several trash bags full of used disposable diapers floating.
The diving is interesting - lots of structure, depths to 120+, abandoned cars and old quarrying equipment on the bottom. Visibility can vary from 2 feet to crystal clear. Sometimes there is a band of murky low vis 10 - 20 feet thick with better vis above and below. Often the visibility is better in the overhead.
Except for the trash, it's a beautiful spot. We have often thought that it would make an excellent dive spot if someone would clean it up.
Mike
Last edited by MORGAN; 05-23-2010 at 06:20 PM.
Thanx for posting! Did you enter the passages through the quarry or shaft? How long are the passages? Are there multiple tunnels? Appreciate any insights that can be provided.
BTW, upon our exit on our previous visit, four or five young locals were having some fun shooting up old TVs and trash with a host of rifles and pistols. They were closer to the road and not near the quarry though it was unnerving at first.
Does anyone offer cavern training in true blue anymore?
Kris
My wife and I dove the mine shaft on 05 July 2010 and it appears that the ladder had recently been reinforced and improved upon. The line was also in good shape. So it appears that someone is keeping up on it for cave diving.
BTW, on that day the air temperature was 95 F but the water was still 41 F!
I live in Central Maine, and cave dive..give me a Jingle
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