Ice Diving
- Thread starter Erich S
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maj2
Contributor
That is the text that we used for my Ice Diving Course.
I think that a lot of the "Is Ice diving Technical?" debate depends a lot on what kind of diving one is used to. For those of us brought up in cold water diving, ice diving is a logical extension and can be a good introduction to cold water overhead environments.
For my course, and any subsequent ice dives I have done, we have not used tethers as most have described. We learned about them, and understood the concept. Instead, we dropped a weighted line at a corner of our hole, and then tied a reel to the drop line. We ran the reel under the ice and dove as a team. I can see advantages to both systems (e.g. tug communication with the tender, versus entanglement hazards if the tethers get too slack), but I am most comfortable with the system that I trained on.
In all, my ice diving course was both the most strenuous course I ever took (cutting the hole and dragging the blocks was exhausting), as well as the most rewarding. It was also the most fun I ever had on a course, as well as possibly being the most that I learned on a course. When I know that my LDS is offering an ice course, I try to free up the time just in order to take advantage of a giant hole in the ice to go diving through!
For those with the cold water experience, and opportunity (i.e. thick enough ice, etc.), ice training is highly recommended. Unfortunately, our last couple of winters have been so mild that there has been no ice diving within any reasonable drive of where I live.
I'm planning on doing an ice diving course this winter locally, as long as there is ice on the quarry! This year there isn't, so it was open for cold water diving instead.
Here where I live, (mid-north part of Sweden) we mostly have 6*C in the summer, if you drop below 8-10 meters. So most divers i know dive in a drysuite. I am a beginner diver, and all my dives in Sweden has been in a drysuite.
In the winter we always have ice. Most winters I keep a hole to dip myself when taking a sauna, but then I go nude. ;-)
kafkaland
Contributor
Now, if you ever do a nude ice dive, that would be rad!
A Swedish Waterproof-brand 7mm suit with 5mm shorty can keep you warm enough to go under the ice for 20mins or so. Your body is fine even after 20 mins, but your hands are usually the part that can't take the cold. Diving is OK in one of those suits; unfortunately stripping to don the suit is darn cold and the getting undressed when dripping wet is well & truely unpleasant.
The idea of Smurfs might just have come from watching winter divers undress back in the drysuits-unaffordable days.
No. That would be stupid.
OP
Erich S
Contributor
NAUI shows their Ice diving course as tech and their certification requirements are close to those of the PADI rec course for example.
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Bubblesong
Contributor
All those nekkid Scandinavians can't be wrong, although they are sure to have a hot tub near
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