First "ice" dive of the year

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JoelW

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Scuba Instructor
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Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Winter has finally come to Minnesota. A couple other guys and I decided to see if we could get in one last dive before the lakes completely iced over. We met at Square Lake Regional Park this morning and found that most of the lake was skimmed over. There was a couple of hundred yard long by 75 yard wide section still open that started 10' from shore. The ice around the edge of the opening was about half an inch thick. After debating whether to head into the water we decided to head in and take a couple of precautions. We decided to look up a lot to make sure that we still had bubbles breaking the surface and we dragged a float along. If the float stopped we had gone to far. So, we swam the length of the hole until we could make out the edge of the ice. I had forgotten how neat the underside of the ice looks. After about 20 minutes in the water we got out and packed up. The timing ended up being outstanding. It was raining while we were at the lake and by the time I returned home it was a full blown snow storm. It is still snowing very hard.

One thing about today is that I may be a member of the Minnesota chapter of CAD. I was plenty snug in my drysuit, dry gloves, Weezle undies and an argon bottle just to accessorize. The other two guys were doing this wet. The air temp was in the 30s and the water temp was 35F-36F. I am apparently a candy-@#s.

Now it is time to pack up the gear for a month until the hard water is thick enough to get out on.

JoelW
 
Sounds like fun. I noticed a post in rec.scuba.equipment the other day asking about the best way to get snow machines out of the lakes. Maybe you should be making some money on the side..:winky:

I haven't run into anyone doing any ice diving here. I keep thinking there must be someone, but I haven't heard about them. We've got plenty of frozen lakes, although not a lot to see under there I don't think.

So you don't dive after the lakes freeze over solid? I thought that would be better, having a solid platform and all.
 
There is enough ice that I will be out with a batch this weekend cutting holes in the hard water. Surface air temp in the 40s will make for a very comfortable time.

JoelW
 
What can I say, it's an odd winter in Minnesota this year. A couple of years ago we were in the -20s at this time. I will take what I can get though, next year could be right back to normal.

JoelW
 
Same here. Last year was really mild, no complaints though. Year before we had 4 or 5 weeks of sub zero, it sucked.

I'll enjoy the rest of the winter, the vis is the best. After May it starts getting worse, and the jellyfish increase!
 
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