France Park: Diving into one of Indiana’s beautiful limestone quarries

Posted: Jun 20 in Dive Blog tagged by Jan

After dive certification and dive classes, try France Park in Logansport, IN for a great beginner diveLooking for a new place to get your feet (and the rest of you) wet after your dive certification? You may not have to leave the Midwest to find it. Though Illinois and its surrounding states lack opportunities for open ocean and tropical reef dives, our diving locations offer their own allures. In fact, you can find tons of exciting places to SCUBA dive without even leaving this landlocked chunk of America.

France Park in Logansport, IN is one of those places, being perhaps the most popular diving location in Indiana. Just four hours east of Peoria, the park’s Old Kenith Stone Quarry is lined with beautiful limestone cliffs and reaches a maximum depth of 31 feet. Nestled in rural Indiana, France Park is one of the state’s best kept secrets and offers a great place for beginners to get a fun dive in the Midwest.

Diving at France Park

Over the years, SCUBA divers have placed many things at the bottom of Old Kenith Stone Quarry for other divers to explore and enjoy. These items include a 1940’s school bus, a culvert, a fish habitat, an old pickup truck and a communication station. The quarry floor is also home to long-forgotten mining equipment like train wheels and other items that remain from the quarry’s operational days.

These provide divers with some interesting underwater sights that enrich the diving environment. Visibility averages about 10 to 20 feet and can be as high as 30 feet on a good day, giving you a great look at Old Kenith’s sunken curios.

Wildlife

One of France Park’s largest diving draws is the chance to spot a spoonbill sturgeon, a gigantic primitive fish species with a long and flat spatula-like nose. Considered a living fossil, the spoonbill is believed to have developed as long as 40 million years ago and can reach a length of six feet and weigh up to 200 pounds. They’re also called paddlefish and are reportedly very calm and approachable creatures, though they may use their strong tails to speed away with a sudden burst of power if they feel threatened.

Interested in making France Park the location of your next dive? Here are their requirements for SCUBA divers:

  • Present certification card
  • Pay $10 per diver entry fee
  • Dive with a buddy & only when a divemaster is on duty
  • Sign waiver, check in & out at Diving Den’s Air Refill Center

Have you been to France Park? Tell us about it in the comments below.

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