My first dive in the Lake district at Jackdaw Quarry Capernwray 12/08/1998! I had gone up with a group of divers including my brother Barry, who I had taught not long beforehand, and Mark Hill and his daughter Kelly. I had Jason, one of my regular Dive-masters with me, and we were going to check out Capernwray as a potential change of scenery from Stoney Cove. I had been hearing about Capernwray for some time and a change is often just what is needed, despite the long drive up the M6, which to be honest everyone can do without, for those with Rose-Tinted glasses the M6 was a nightmare even back then….. The car-parking at Capernwray was as bad if not worse than at Stoney Cove, but, like the Cove there was a filling station, a cafe & dive shop and changing rooms with toilets
I liked Capernwray, I knew the distance from us would mean it would only ever be an occasional visit, however there were attractions you wouldn’t get at Stoney Cove, the abundant Trout the owners had put in the clear and cold water of Jackdaw Quarry for one thing……..Every entry down the slip, and even more so, every exit from the water was met with dozens of big Rainbow Trout eager to be fed by divers, they weren’t (and still aren’t) backwards in coming forwards, and divers often get “buzzed” by the more aggressive of the shoals which is great fun, it’s not often you get a slap in the face from a wet trout…………Later on the Quarry owners would add Sturgeon to the venue, not on the menu, but in the quarry itself, now I knew that Trout could thrive in lakes, even though they were truly river fish, I’d have never thought Sturgeon, natives of the mighty Volga river of Russia, would make lakes their home, but they are still there, getting bigger by the year and are approachable too! I placed this post in the marine life section of the blog as it would be a mundane dive if not for the Sturgeon we swam with and the trout as we exited……..