Looking for an Ice Dive course

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Woodbridge, Virginia ? Tobermory, Ontario, is a long way to go. You could probably find a quarry that is closer. Do you have a special interest in Tobermory ?

Yes. You can dive some of the worlds famous wrecks in stunning vis while under ice

 

[Glenn08]

The 'Sweepstakes' and the 'City of Grand Rapids' in Big Tub Harbour are the only two wrecks that I can think of that are accessible for under-ice diving. What wrecks are you planning to dive ?

 

[patpicos]

Dans dive shop is running a ice dive course in jan or feb I believe

Most areas are frozen over now. Welland canal wreck is a nice dive lol

---------- Post added January 4th, 2014 at 09:02 PM ----------

I've also heard great comments on dale McKnight's ice diving courses.
He probably runs the course in either Tobermory at lighthouse or Barrie

 

[Stoo]

In theory you could also access the Tugs under the ice. Not sure I'd consider them "world class" but fun none the less. Dale runs a very thorough course I imagine (Based in what I know of his other programmes. You can contact him through the Dive Academy in Oakville I think...

 

[NightForce]

I don't think the actual dive location will be anything special but Dive Right In Scuba in Illinois is offering an Ice Diver Course.

SDI Ice Diver Course - Scuba Lessons Chicago

 

[shoredivr]

Glenn08, sure there are two different styles of ice diving. One involves a surface tender and safety line, the other involves running a line like cave or wreck penetration. Both can have safety issues.

A few years ago now there was a death in the St Lawrence River. Two experienced tech overhead divers made a dive to the wreck of the Kingshorn, a dive they had made many times before, and had all the gas and redundancy required. IIRC it's about a thousand feet of permanent line from the shore to the wreck. Somewhere in about 70 ft of water one of the divers had an inflator hose free flow which resulted in an uncontrolled ascent to the undersurface of the ice.

The team mate did everything possible but it was a fatality anyway. It was impossible to disconnect the inflator hose at depth due to the ice that formed over the mechanism. The accident was posted here on SB and on the local Ontario Diving board. The death resulted in much rethinking of procedures for ice diving, and one of the take aways for me was to not attach the inflator hose when water temps make freeflows possible. IIRC it was also thought that long distance under ice penetrations in a river (with unpredictable currents) was not a best practice.

My point is that any kind of ice diving has risks, and running lines does not automatically mean safer.

 

[Stoo]

I sometimes think that ice-diving is thought of as an "add-on" to say, an AOW course. In one sense it could be... dive teams with tenders and limited penetration of 50' or so. These dives go on all over the place generally without serious consequences. I've seen so many cases of reg freeze-up on divers farting around on the underside of the ice, 25' from the hole, I wouldn't even guess at the number. When that happens, they rocket back to the hole, assisted by the tender, and everyone has a big laugh about it. Those divers are typically rec divers, with a single rig and maybe a pony or something.

Then there are the dives like Shoredvr mentioned above. I know/knew the guys involved in that accident to be highly skilled and expericenced divers, but I always though that that particular dive was nuts. The wreck is fairly deep (as ice-diving goes) and a long way from shore. It was every bit a cave dive, with the added stressors of near-freezing temperatures, decent current and crap vis often. It was a perfect example of a situation where if enough stuff goes wrong, even the very best divers can't overcome all of the problems and conclude the dive safely.

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

Did that diver die because of decompression violations? Reaching ice ceiling in an uncontrolled manner should not be an issue because you are still connected with the safety line. No?

 

[Stoo]

I don't recall the actual CoD but probably drowning. As I recall reading the reports from his buddy, the inflator freeze-up pinned him to the bottom of the ice, then a reg freeze-up and things went downhill from there... A horrible situation.

 

[KD8NPB]

I don't recall the actual CoD but probably drowning. As I recall reading the reports from his buddy, the inflator freeze-up pinned him to the bottom of the ice, then a reg freeze-up and things went downhill from there... A horrible situation.

Sounds like he was overusing his inflator...either overweighted, or one of those divers that waits until they're 10 feet from the bottom to arrest their descent.

Reg freeze up due heavy use would be expected.