JWard
Registered
Wow this was a cool class! Ok, maybe that pun was intended.
We had 10 students, 5 of which were county rescue divers who regularly perform ice dives and were great in the water. They all had full-face masks with com units and a topside base unit.
The class was about 4 hours long on Friday night, and the 3 dives were done on Saturday and Sunday.
We arrived at the lake before 8am Saturday (I had to get up at 5:30 and believe me that is a miracle!). The weather was very cooperative - it was 14* when we got there but climbed to 44* with light to moderate winds.
The hardest part to ice diving is all the prep work. Clearing snow via shovel was really tough (ever shovel snow while standing on really, really smooth ice?) However, it was good to work up some body heat with the workout.
We cut 10' triangular holes (yes, 2 of them due to the number of divers) with chain saws and some old-school ice saws. The first hole took about 2 hours and the second just an hour. Ice was 13" thick and pretty stable. We also geared up all the safety lines, placed plywood beside the holes to stand on, drug all our gear out on the lake (about a 200 yard hike to the parking area) and got ready to go. The first 3 divers were in the water about 11:30am.
The instructor had a 150' line (limited to 75') and the other 150' line went to the lead diver, who was also tethered to a second diver. I have to admit I was NOT thrilled about the idea of being tethered to another diver (what if they have an uncontrolled ascent?) but in this situation it worked. Vis was no more than 5 feet - it sucked! Having 3 separate lines in the water would have been a tangled mess.
We rotated through the various topside support roles such as line tender, diver tender, safety diver, etc. as the dive teams hit the water. It was interesting to watch these very experienced divers struggling with the whole process.
These are instructors and other professional divers who have thousands of dives in their log books, but no/little experience on/under the ice. They really struggled with the idea that a tender would be gearing them up. It is very difficult to gear yourself up while sitting or standing on ice. Add to that the extra undergarments, wearing a harness and having lines clipped to you, it was all a real pain. Buoyancy control was the biggest issue for almost everyone. Since the vis was so bad you couldn't see the ice until you about hit it, and you couldn't see the bottom (mud/silt) until you were laying in it. Managing your own buoyancy is possible, but when you have a buddy tugging on you in one direction and a safety line pulling you in another, it's a whole new ballgame. Add to that you are trying not to foul the 3 lines in the water (that you can only see 5 feet of) and you have a real challenge. Almost every diver had to add weight to get under, and we mostly did this by clipping off ankle weights to the tank valves, so their trim was terrible too, which just added to the anxiety levels.
I was tending the diver group just before my group and one of the divers ripped his Viking dry suit going into the water. We yanked him out ASAP and my buddy filled his spot on the dive team. Thus I was surface-bound until the guy got his suit fixed (plus I wasn't terribly excited about diving while tethered to someone I didn't even know).
The only excitement for the day was when the instructor, whose line I was tending, called on his com that he was shivering and wanted pulled out. He had a small dry glove leak and before the dive had said it was his last for the day. I pulled him out and all was as we were trained to do.
I didn't get in the water until about 3pm and had to do my 2 dives back to back as the last team of the day. I was already cold and wet from helping all day, but I went to put on my dry suit. We had converted a shelter on shore to a changing room complete with a propane heater, so it was REALLY nice in there. I got warm and dried off before putting on the 3 layers of garments and the dry suit. I was slightly sweating when I walked out of the room.
After getting on the harness and all the other crap we were set to splash. The owner of the LDS was our instructor on 1 line, and the guy with the repaired dry suit was the lead diver. I was tethered to him on a 10' line.
We were required to dive for at least 10 minutes to call it a dive, so they were at least pretty short. Frankly, in 5' vis and staying within 75' of the hole, 10 minutes is plenty of time. Especially since the only thing to look at was a sunken 25' sailboat and one other item that I'll mention later. We agreed to head north to the sailboat and hang there for the 10 min. Only 1 diver group found the boat all day, even though it is within 20' of the hole. They were all to task loaded to accurately navigate. Heck, most of the groups went south instead of north, and several made multiple circles around the hole.
We went the wrong way, but I wasn't the lead diver, so I just went along. I pointed us in the right direction a few times, but we mostly wandered around. At one point my buddy had gone over me and switched directions. Since you can only see about 5' of the 10' buddy line, it's easy to get tangled. As I was unwrapping the buddy line the instructor bumped into me and fouled his line with me as well. I just went limp and let him untangle me. I knew any effort I made to try to untangle myself would have made it worse. He had me flipped around several times and even inverted once. LOL!
We ended the dive at about 9 minutes since we ran across the hole again. No biggie - it was close enough to 10 min. The lead instructor called for us to swap out tanks, so they pulled us out of the water. I had 2600 in my tank, but he insisted it needed to be changed for a fresh one. We were instructed to sit on the edge while a tender swapped the tank for us. That took a solid 10 min. I splashed again, now with a whopping 2800 psi (all that for 200 lbs?) and my tank slipped out of the band. Ugh - this is why I don't like other people touching my gear. So I bobbed face-down for another 10 min while they put the tank back in the band. We finally went under for dive #2.
About 4 minutes into the dive I get the "return to surface" signal on my line and was pulled back in. The instructor had a very bad leg cramp he couldn't resolve. He'd been on 4 consecutive dives and I think just got cold. We bobbed for about 30 min while another instructor suited up and jumped in. I was definitely getting a bit cold - mostly just my toes though. I was thrilled with how the undergarments performed. I wore a base layer of North Face on top and Under Armor 2.0 on bottom, a thin fleece top and pants, and finally a ÅÕemperate fleece jumpsuit. My hood was a Henderson 7/5 and gloves were the Mares 6/4 ones. The hood was TOTALLY dry all 3 dives and very warm. The gloves let some water exchange especially up to the wrist and palm, but were generally ok.
We went under with the other instructor for another 6 minutes to complete the 10 minute dive. Again, we were not even close to reaching the boat.
On Sunday we got there at 8 again and got the hole cleared. The blocks had refrozen some, but were chipped away easily. My team was the first in the water since we were last the day before. I was the lead diver this time and we had the same plan. The instructor was a guy who taught me how to dive a dry suit, so I knew him as well. I had dropped almost 8 lbs of weight from the day before since I was fighting my buoyancy. I had watched every diver need more weight, so I had preemptively added weight. Turns out I should have stuck with what I needed during the pool dive. My buoyancy and trim was sooooo much better. And, vis had improved to 10'!
We were in and under much quicker on dive #3 and we headed straight north and hit the boat with no trouble. Well, I hit the boat, but I had to pull my buddy in - at the end of the 10' line he couldn't see it! LOL I turned on my light and we looked in the boat and generally checked it over. The instructor signaled me to follow him down the permanent line attached to the bow that leads to other sunken features. The next feature on the line is a child-sized coffin. I know, pretty creepy, but divers are crazy! As we were looking at the coffin I was slightly positively buoyant and couldn't figure out why. I rechecked that my dry suit exhaust valve all the way open and it was, plus no air was coming out. I rechecked my BCD and it was indeed empty. Even on an exhale I was barely negative. Then I got the "trouble" signal from my buddy. Now it did occur to me at the time that looking at a coffin and getting a trouble signal is just bad, bad karma! He was straight above me and had been pulling me up. I quickly swam up and we were just under the ice (bottom in this lake is like 15' to 20'). He pointed at his reg when I asked if he was OK. He seemed to be breathing normally from the bubbles - no free flow, no fast breathing. I pointed to my pony reg, which I had on a sling, but he didn't respond and he wasn't looking directly at me. All that added up to trouble in my mind. That's when I called it and signaled surface to pull us out. I wasn't going to wait to find out he was out of air or had some other problem, nor wait for him to panic. He seemed to be breathing, so I thought it was a great time to leave. We were at about 8.5 minutes dive time anyway.
That's when my trouble started. The surface line was wrapped once around my right hand and was clipped to my right shoulder. When they pulled me I went face-up and was against the ice, head-first through the water. My mask was plastered to the bottom of the ice. The line was also pulling my reg out of my mouth so I was getting a little water with each breath (it must have been pulling on the reg hose at my right shoulder). I couldn't grab the reg very well with my right hand as it was wrapped in the line, and at this point was carrying the load of my and the other diver being pulled through the water. I struggled to clear the water, but had to gurgle past a little water on each breath. I was trying to decide if I should use my left hand to grab the pony reg and switch off or if I should continue to use my left hand to push off the ice! I was getting enough air so I just stuck it out and we were back to the surface within about 30 seconds. Everyone topside was waiting for us - I'm sure it got really exciting when I pulled the emergency signal.
Turns out my buddy had a slight free flow. It would be ok for one breath, then purge a bit on the next, then was ok, etc. He went up when it happened and it resolved as he was signaling me. He was waiting to see what it did when I was signaling him OK. At the hole he was down to 1500 psi so it was time to be back anyway (we were diving thirds, of course, so 2k was turn and 1k was planned end of dive).
After we were out the lead instructor had a quick huddle and debriefed on the situation, mostly to calm everyone down. The only take-away was that they needed to signal the instructor before yanking him out. He had no idea we had trouble, but was just whisked through the water! LOL He actually beat us back to the hole. He said I did what I was supposed to do but I still question myself if I should have shoved the pony reg in his face. If so we could have swam back normally, but I didnÃÕ know the diver or his propensity to panic. A panicked diver on the end of a pony reg that is clipped to me isnÃÕ very appealing. I saw he was breathing and thought he could make the return trip of less than 1 minute to the surface.
All the other divers were in and out easily and had MUCH more fun that the day before! Once the anxiety of diving in these conditions wore off they could enjoy the dives again. In fact, we recalled 2 teams because they were diving for TOO LONG!
Did you read all that? I'm impressed! Thanks for doing so!
Gear run-down:
- OS Systems dry suit, OS undergarments
- base layer of North Face on top and Under Armor 2.0 on bottom
- thin fleece top and pants as middle layer
- Legend regs with Glacia environmental seal
- Steel 80 tank
- 19cf pony, on a stage strap and same sealed Legend reg
- Henderson 7/5 arctic dry suit hood
- Mares 6/4 Trilastic gloves
- Balance back-inflate BCD
- 28 lbs weight (8 in rear trim pockets, the rest in front ditchable pockets)
We had 10 students, 5 of which were county rescue divers who regularly perform ice dives and were great in the water. They all had full-face masks with com units and a topside base unit.
The class was about 4 hours long on Friday night, and the 3 dives were done on Saturday and Sunday.
We arrived at the lake before 8am Saturday (I had to get up at 5:30 and believe me that is a miracle!). The weather was very cooperative - it was 14* when we got there but climbed to 44* with light to moderate winds.
The hardest part to ice diving is all the prep work. Clearing snow via shovel was really tough (ever shovel snow while standing on really, really smooth ice?) However, it was good to work up some body heat with the workout.
We cut 10' triangular holes (yes, 2 of them due to the number of divers) with chain saws and some old-school ice saws. The first hole took about 2 hours and the second just an hour. Ice was 13" thick and pretty stable. We also geared up all the safety lines, placed plywood beside the holes to stand on, drug all our gear out on the lake (about a 200 yard hike to the parking area) and got ready to go. The first 3 divers were in the water about 11:30am.
The instructor had a 150' line (limited to 75') and the other 150' line went to the lead diver, who was also tethered to a second diver. I have to admit I was NOT thrilled about the idea of being tethered to another diver (what if they have an uncontrolled ascent?) but in this situation it worked. Vis was no more than 5 feet - it sucked! Having 3 separate lines in the water would have been a tangled mess.
We rotated through the various topside support roles such as line tender, diver tender, safety diver, etc. as the dive teams hit the water. It was interesting to watch these very experienced divers struggling with the whole process.
These are instructors and other professional divers who have thousands of dives in their log books, but no/little experience on/under the ice. They really struggled with the idea that a tender would be gearing them up. It is very difficult to gear yourself up while sitting or standing on ice. Add to that the extra undergarments, wearing a harness and having lines clipped to you, it was all a real pain. Buoyancy control was the biggest issue for almost everyone. Since the vis was so bad you couldn't see the ice until you about hit it, and you couldn't see the bottom (mud/silt) until you were laying in it. Managing your own buoyancy is possible, but when you have a buddy tugging on you in one direction and a safety line pulling you in another, it's a whole new ballgame. Add to that you are trying not to foul the 3 lines in the water (that you can only see 5 feet of) and you have a real challenge. Almost every diver had to add weight to get under, and we mostly did this by clipping off ankle weights to the tank valves, so their trim was terrible too, which just added to the anxiety levels.
I was tending the diver group just before my group and one of the divers ripped his Viking dry suit going into the water. We yanked him out ASAP and my buddy filled his spot on the dive team. Thus I was surface-bound until the guy got his suit fixed (plus I wasn't terribly excited about diving while tethered to someone I didn't even know).
The only excitement for the day was when the instructor, whose line I was tending, called on his com that he was shivering and wanted pulled out. He had a small dry glove leak and before the dive had said it was his last for the day. I pulled him out and all was as we were trained to do.
I didn't get in the water until about 3pm and had to do my 2 dives back to back as the last team of the day. I was already cold and wet from helping all day, but I went to put on my dry suit. We had converted a shelter on shore to a changing room complete with a propane heater, so it was REALLY nice in there. I got warm and dried off before putting on the 3 layers of garments and the dry suit. I was slightly sweating when I walked out of the room.
After getting on the harness and all the other crap we were set to splash. The owner of the LDS was our instructor on 1 line, and the guy with the repaired dry suit was the lead diver. I was tethered to him on a 10' line.
We were required to dive for at least 10 minutes to call it a dive, so they were at least pretty short. Frankly, in 5' vis and staying within 75' of the hole, 10 minutes is plenty of time. Especially since the only thing to look at was a sunken 25' sailboat and one other item that I'll mention later. We agreed to head north to the sailboat and hang there for the 10 min. Only 1 diver group found the boat all day, even though it is within 20' of the hole. They were all to task loaded to accurately navigate. Heck, most of the groups went south instead of north, and several made multiple circles around the hole.
We went the wrong way, but I wasn't the lead diver, so I just went along. I pointed us in the right direction a few times, but we mostly wandered around. At one point my buddy had gone over me and switched directions. Since you can only see about 5' of the 10' buddy line, it's easy to get tangled. As I was unwrapping the buddy line the instructor bumped into me and fouled his line with me as well. I just went limp and let him untangle me. I knew any effort I made to try to untangle myself would have made it worse. He had me flipped around several times and even inverted once. LOL!
We ended the dive at about 9 minutes since we ran across the hole again. No biggie - it was close enough to 10 min. The lead instructor called for us to swap out tanks, so they pulled us out of the water. I had 2600 in my tank, but he insisted it needed to be changed for a fresh one. We were instructed to sit on the edge while a tender swapped the tank for us. That took a solid 10 min. I splashed again, now with a whopping 2800 psi (all that for 200 lbs?) and my tank slipped out of the band. Ugh - this is why I don't like other people touching my gear. So I bobbed face-down for another 10 min while they put the tank back in the band. We finally went under for dive #2.
About 4 minutes into the dive I get the "return to surface" signal on my line and was pulled back in. The instructor had a very bad leg cramp he couldn't resolve. He'd been on 4 consecutive dives and I think just got cold. We bobbed for about 30 min while another instructor suited up and jumped in. I was definitely getting a bit cold - mostly just my toes though. I was thrilled with how the undergarments performed. I wore a base layer of North Face on top and Under Armor 2.0 on bottom, a thin fleece top and pants, and finally a ÅÕemperate fleece jumpsuit. My hood was a Henderson 7/5 and gloves were the Mares 6/4 ones. The hood was TOTALLY dry all 3 dives and very warm. The gloves let some water exchange especially up to the wrist and palm, but were generally ok.
We went under with the other instructor for another 6 minutes to complete the 10 minute dive. Again, we were not even close to reaching the boat.
On Sunday we got there at 8 again and got the hole cleared. The blocks had refrozen some, but were chipped away easily. My team was the first in the water since we were last the day before. I was the lead diver this time and we had the same plan. The instructor was a guy who taught me how to dive a dry suit, so I knew him as well. I had dropped almost 8 lbs of weight from the day before since I was fighting my buoyancy. I had watched every diver need more weight, so I had preemptively added weight. Turns out I should have stuck with what I needed during the pool dive. My buoyancy and trim was sooooo much better. And, vis had improved to 10'!
We were in and under much quicker on dive #3 and we headed straight north and hit the boat with no trouble. Well, I hit the boat, but I had to pull my buddy in - at the end of the 10' line he couldn't see it! LOL I turned on my light and we looked in the boat and generally checked it over. The instructor signaled me to follow him down the permanent line attached to the bow that leads to other sunken features. The next feature on the line is a child-sized coffin. I know, pretty creepy, but divers are crazy! As we were looking at the coffin I was slightly positively buoyant and couldn't figure out why. I rechecked that my dry suit exhaust valve all the way open and it was, plus no air was coming out. I rechecked my BCD and it was indeed empty. Even on an exhale I was barely negative. Then I got the "trouble" signal from my buddy. Now it did occur to me at the time that looking at a coffin and getting a trouble signal is just bad, bad karma! He was straight above me and had been pulling me up. I quickly swam up and we were just under the ice (bottom in this lake is like 15' to 20'). He pointed at his reg when I asked if he was OK. He seemed to be breathing normally from the bubbles - no free flow, no fast breathing. I pointed to my pony reg, which I had on a sling, but he didn't respond and he wasn't looking directly at me. All that added up to trouble in my mind. That's when I called it and signaled surface to pull us out. I wasn't going to wait to find out he was out of air or had some other problem, nor wait for him to panic. He seemed to be breathing, so I thought it was a great time to leave. We were at about 8.5 minutes dive time anyway.
That's when my trouble started. The surface line was wrapped once around my right hand and was clipped to my right shoulder. When they pulled me I went face-up and was against the ice, head-first through the water. My mask was plastered to the bottom of the ice. The line was also pulling my reg out of my mouth so I was getting a little water with each breath (it must have been pulling on the reg hose at my right shoulder). I couldn't grab the reg very well with my right hand as it was wrapped in the line, and at this point was carrying the load of my and the other diver being pulled through the water. I struggled to clear the water, but had to gurgle past a little water on each breath. I was trying to decide if I should use my left hand to grab the pony reg and switch off or if I should continue to use my left hand to push off the ice! I was getting enough air so I just stuck it out and we were back to the surface within about 30 seconds. Everyone topside was waiting for us - I'm sure it got really exciting when I pulled the emergency signal.
Turns out my buddy had a slight free flow. It would be ok for one breath, then purge a bit on the next, then was ok, etc. He went up when it happened and it resolved as he was signaling me. He was waiting to see what it did when I was signaling him OK. At the hole he was down to 1500 psi so it was time to be back anyway (we were diving thirds, of course, so 2k was turn and 1k was planned end of dive).
After we were out the lead instructor had a quick huddle and debriefed on the situation, mostly to calm everyone down. The only take-away was that they needed to signal the instructor before yanking him out. He had no idea we had trouble, but was just whisked through the water! LOL He actually beat us back to the hole. He said I did what I was supposed to do but I still question myself if I should have shoved the pony reg in his face. If so we could have swam back normally, but I didnÃÕ know the diver or his propensity to panic. A panicked diver on the end of a pony reg that is clipped to me isnÃÕ very appealing. I saw he was breathing and thought he could make the return trip of less than 1 minute to the surface.
All the other divers were in and out easily and had MUCH more fun that the day before! Once the anxiety of diving in these conditions wore off they could enjoy the dives again. In fact, we recalled 2 teams because they were diving for TOO LONG!
Did you read all that? I'm impressed! Thanks for doing so!
Gear run-down:
- OS Systems dry suit, OS undergarments
- base layer of North Face on top and Under Armor 2.0 on bottom
- thin fleece top and pants as middle layer
- Legend regs with Glacia environmental seal
- Steel 80 tank
- 19cf pony, on a stage strap and same sealed Legend reg
- Henderson 7/5 arctic dry suit hood
- Mares 6/4 Trilastic gloves
- Balance back-inflate BCD
- 28 lbs weight (8 in rear trim pockets, the rest in front ditchable pockets)
