With an unexpected spare day, we found ourselves at Cromhall quarry. We hadn’t been here for a little while and I did a quick search on the internet to see what had changed. By reading the reviews, it seemed that very little had changed and there was quite a lot of negative press, whether it was just people having problems finding it or just the lack of facilities / points of interest.

 Having been there beforehand and knowing what to expect, we set off and arrived nice and early. The first bonus to this place is…not having to queue for ages! Straight up to the counter, sign in, pay entrance fee, done in less than one minute! Good start to the day and the sun was with us as well :o)

We started at the beach end, nice easy walk in where it gently slops away to the maximum depth of around 17m. Straight away there were a few small fish in the shallows, enjoying the warmer water with us. I must say the visibility wasn’t as good as I’d remembered from last time but with the really heavy rain from Friday, this quarry seemed to be fairing better than some others and had not been affected as much with the wash off from the land.

Back on the surface, we all enjoyed our packed lunch on the comfortable picnic benches, perhaps we should bring a BBQ next time :o) as they do allow people to bring their own.

For the second dive we headed to the opposite end and hugged the northern wall where we met “Billy” the huge Koi Carp. A bit of a surprise when we first saw him, as we didn’t know he’d moved in :o) but he didn’t seem phased, allowing us to get within a metre of him. 

Having to use the facilities, it was good to see that everything was clean and in working order, unlike being at Glastonbury Festival :o) Yes this place is not like the others but I did enjoy the less crowded and more simple approach, a great place if you need to have a “dive fix” and just want something local, quick and easy. We’ll definitely be back :o)