Is it Ice yet?

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So how's the ice? Thick enough to walk on in doubles? Need a chain saw to open a hole? Or thin with easy shore entrance?

I'm looking to dive there next weekend, but want some good ice, nice and thick!

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[Dive Right In Scuba]

I just fired off an email to Tina to see how the ice is at Haigh ;) I will let you know as soon as I here back. We have had some colder weather, and this week should be 30s, so as long as there is ice, it should hold and be some good surface temps for Ice Diving :D

[scububa]

I'm not doing that even with dry gloves!

brrrrrrrrrr

[ppo2_diver]

Talked to Dick last week. They had 3 inches.

[Dive Right In Scuba]

Tina just emailed back 4-8"s....broad spectrum...time will tell ;)

Keep hoping for cold weather.

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Guess I better get busy and install the new drysuit inflator valve; that big hole in the chest might make things a bit chilly!

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[M&P+4]

This question struck me a little funny (OK - its been a long winter) - we've been driving on the ice for a month now. there's at least 18" on most lakes and I'd bet some are close to 24".

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Yep, those of us a bit further south lose touch with winter. A day or two of a bit of snow; maybe ice on a bridge. I do recall a couple of days years ago when the lake almost froze - just enough around the edges to make getting a boat out difficult (put a man on the bow with a canoe paddle to break the ice).

500 miles can make all the difference!

But! I've been signed up to take an Ice Diving class every year for the past five and there's been insufficient ice every year. This is year 6. Then again, I haven't ventured further north than chicago!

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[skdvr]

My mother in law lives on Lake Okoboji in northern Iowa and I have wanted to go up there every year for an ice diving class too but have not made it yet. Skip if ever get the inkling to drive all the way up there the dive shop on the lake is Blue Water Divers (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Arnolds-Park-IA/Blue-Water-Divers/97103398706#/pages/Arnolds-Park-IA/Blue-Water-Divers/97103398706?v=wall). That link is for their Facebook page. Apparently their website is down... Very nice people that run the shop and they do Lots of Ice Diving...

Phil

[Dive Right In Scuba]

My mother in law lives on Lake Okoboji in northern Iowa and I have wanted to go up there every year for an ice diving class too but have not made it yet. Skip if ever get the inkling to drive all the way up there the dive shop on the lake is Blue Water Divers (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Arnolds-Park-IA/Blue-Water-Divers/97103398706#/pages/Arnolds-Park-IA/Blue-Water-Divers/97103398706?v=wall). That link is for their Facebook page. Apparently their website is down... Very nice people that run the shop and they do Lots of Ice Diving...

Phil

He will be at Haigh this weekend....you coming too :D

[skdvr]

Wish that I could... Damn work gets in the way again...

Phil

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Truck's packed and I'll be on my way in the morning. Looking forward to my first ice dives!

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It was Ice! I drove up north friday with rain pelting the truck all the way to just off St Louis where it changed to ice then to snow. Before sunset the salt trucks were running up and down the interstate. Soon after sunset I was tucked away in my motel room warm and cozy.

Saturday morning the wind was blowing hard, but the packed snow and ice was not blowing around much at all. It was in the 20's and sunny with a nice crisp blue sky. Haigh quarry was busy as I pulled in, registered and paid, and found the DiveRightInScuba truck parked among all the other diver's vehicles. What a crowd! Groups staked out territory and cut triangular holes with chain saws. There were so many I could easily envision a crack forming and running from one hole to the next until, with all the dots connected, we all fell through the ice! But I did not understand ice.

It was thick, every bit of 9-inches. That doesn't sould like much until you're on it or under it! Thicker than bricks, hard as rock, there was no way to break through. I watched one group try to use a 7 foot steel crow-bar to punch a hole in the ice to no avail. They worked and worked and dug out a ding an inch or two deep. Ice is hard.

Our class had a short lecture, then a pre-dive briefing outlining the dives and skills we would do. Then we were on the ice, cutting a triangular hole with a chain saw. As cold as it was, we worked up a sweat nonetheless! Just cutting the hole was one thing, but then we had to deal with this big block of triangle using shovels to try and push it up and under the ice shelf to open the access hole.

Then we geared up and slithered off the ice shelf into the frigid water. Tethered to one another and to the surface tender, we descended and began the dive. Under the ice, it was little more than just another quarry dive, although a bit darker than you'd expect. The lines, circles, and arrows shoveled out of the snow above pointed the way to the exit hole with a few beams of sunlight dimmed by passing through the ice. But there it was looking like a minature crop circle overhead!

We did some skills, compass courses, regulator switches, line communication and hand signals, but I was itching to play under the ice. I dive quarries and they are all pretty much the same...sunken junk to look at, swim around or under or through, but the ice was the thing and that's where I wanted to be. So up I went!

My computer stopped reading depth; I was less than 2 feet deep! But the ice shelf was smooth as glass. I inflated my BC and stuck to the ceiling, tanks flat against the ice. A single frog kick propelled me along as I felt the tanks scoot and slide along the bottom of the ice! Our exhausted air bubbles pooled like puddles of mercury and bright spots of air pockets pocked the ice overhead.

Too soon play time was over, back to more skills and I watched as Mike, my buddy, removed his full face mask to access his octo in the regulator switch drill. Then we went off on a square compass course, found our way back, and at last had to ascend back up into the cold blowing wind.

We soon debriefed, filled out the log books, cleaned up the ice hole, and left for a bit of food at the local mexican restaurant. Hot food and heat thawed us out at last and we said our goodbyes. I slept like a baby that night and was up early to hit the road home. Ice Diving! When I began diving if you had asked me if I'd ever cut a hole in the ice to dive....I would have laughed at your foolish question! But not today. Today I'd just look at you with a gleam in my eye and say, "I'll bring the chain saw!"

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