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February 9th, 2010, 02:17 PM
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!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFKxLsGvklc
-skip
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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!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFKxLsGvklc
-skip
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