What do you do over the winter?

[Marie13]

Baby steps, shoredivr. She has icewater in her veins, she is one of us. Baby steps...

 

[lowviz]

I give up. I never was any good at "Baby steps". Cut to the chase. Sorry, Lynne.

Ice diving course. Find one.

Up front questions:
Is it tethered? (answer better be "Yes and at all times")
Do you always have a fully dressed backup diver on the surface? (ditto)
How many divers will you put on a tether? (ONE!!!)
Is a line tender holding my tether? (duh!)
Have the line tender and I agreed to (and understand) the line pull signals?

Ice diving is all about the surface. Your gas lasts forever. The coolest gear that you can get for that is a pair of ice picks. You invert, go buoyant, and fly across the ice. The ice/water interface is beautiful beyond words...

Should you do this,
Get TWO sets of Ice Awls Ice Rescue Equipment - Surface & Dive One pouch goes on each wrist. Cut the line right at one of the awls. That one becomes a spare. Burn a hole in the pouch and tie the line to it. Same for other hand. Two pouches with an awl in each and two spares for the dive locker.

Invert, go buoyant, get an awl in each hand. It will take you about ten seconds to figure the rest out...

 

[Marie13]

Sounds like fun, but at least a year or two down the road...

 

[lowviz]

If you can take the cold, it is some of the easiest diving that you will ever do.

Prime directive: Never let anyone pressure you into doing a dive that you aren't comfortable with. Even if you don't have a reason for your discomfort. If you don't feel up to it, take a mandatory pass. It will be there. Tomorrow, next year, whatever...

 

[Marie13]

If you can take the cold, it is some of the easiest diving that you will ever do.

Prime directive: Never let anyone pressure you into doing a dive that you aren't comfortable with. Even if you don't have a reason for your discomfort. If you don't feel up to it, take a mandatory pass. It will be there. Tomorrow, next year, whatever...

I've already dealt with this. Not sure if you saw my Little Cayman thread.

 

[lowviz]

Nah, missed it. Warm water and endless viz scares me...

 

[Diverman68]

Dive till ice up then cut a hole

 

[TMHeimer]

Winter? What winter? Can't believe I did a dive today and disassembled all my gear while still in my bathing suit. In Nova Scotia, late November--air and water temp. both exactly 50F (10C)...... What's happening? I see it will finally turn "cold" this week.

 

[archer1960]

Nah, missed it. Warm water and endless viz scares me...

It can certainly be disorienting! Duck your head under the surface, see the bottom clear as a bell and start down, and find that it takes you quite a while to get down there, feeling like you're free falling the whole time. Then you get there and discover that you're already 90 ft down. Look up and you can see the propellers on the boat that dropped you off...

 

[Neilwood]

It can certainly be disorienting! Duck your head under the surface, see the bottom clear as a bell and start down, and find that it takes you quite a while to get down there, feeling like you're free falling the whole time. Then you get there and discover that you're already 90 ft down. Look up and you can see the propellers on the boat that dropped you off...

It certainly takes a different approach to cold water diving. You need to be very aware of your depth as it is very very easy to drop an extra 5-10m and hardly notice it (big problem if already close to your MOD on Nitrox). Diving at home means that 25-30m is pretty dark and dingy, diving 25-30m in warm water means it looks the same as 5m at home apart from the boat being small!