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Instruction > Classes > Specialized Advanced Diver Training > Ice Diving 2001 > Ice Diving Joy Omni Divers Underwater Services, L.L.C. Ice Diving Joy Click on the Weather in Klamath Falls, Oregon
Ice Diving Joy
Ice diving is a lot of fun. It is sooooooo beautiful ~ and so very hypnotic.
You've seen those ink blot pictures they show in psychologist offices on TV? That is what
the underside of the ice looks like when your air bubbles smash into the 'crystal ceiling'.
One spends the majority of each ice dive hovering on their back a few feet under the ice just
watching their exhalation bubbles. As you've seen countless times before while diving, one's
exhalation bubbles get bigger and more swollen like a jelly fish mantle as they ascend, but
when you are ice diving you get to see them shatter with dramatic force against the underside of the
ice. When a large bubble shatters, it is like watching a bucketful of diamonds being thrown
out onto a mirror. These tiny glittering puffs of air bounce and tumble and roll about as
individual gems for a moment or two until they rapidly begin 'joining forces' once again and slither into
blob like shapes that eerily slide off into the dark nothingness of one's peripheral
vision. Very trippy!!!
I honestly believe the prep work involved on the first day of ice diving is almost more fun
than the actual diving, as it is a joyous teamwork effort. The last time I went ice diving in
99' we had 3 feet of ice to cut through - it took four hours of heavy cutting with 6 divers
to make out opening.
We have a large bore hand auger that we use to cut the points of our eventual triangular
shaped opening and then we take turns with a hand saw cutting out the sides. It is interesting
to note that the ice usually freezes in layers, and there is usually a thin air layer between
each layer of ice. Due to this ice/air/ice layering effect there is really no way to know how
deep the ice actually is when you start. You may auger down until you no longer feel resistance
but that does not necessarily mean you have broken through to water, it may just mean you have
hit an air layer between two ice layers.
The year we had 3 feet of ice to cut through we discovered there were actually three
individual layers of ice. It is fascinating to see a cross section of the ice. The bottom
layer (older ice) is usually as clear as a perfectly diamond because most of the trapped air
has worked its way out. The middle layer is just a little cloudy with air bubbles and the top
layer is all milky white from trapped air bubbles. When you are underneath looking up you can
see scratches in the underside of the middle layer of ice (you are looking through the bottom
layer at the bottom of the middle layer). The scratches are formed when the two ice layers
shifted.
In addition to cutting the triangular opening, we make a wagon wheel pattern (via
shoveling snow) using the hole as the 'hub'. We shovel two concentric circles around
the hole - one is 50 out from the hub and the other is 100 out. Then we add spokes to the
wheel by shoveling straight lines perpendicular to each of the triangles' sides and radiating
out to the 100' circle. Then starting at the three apexes of the triangle, we add additional
spokes (which bisect each of the previous dug out straight lines) out to the 100 circle.
Next we shovel 'pointers' (arrows) on the spokes facing the hub. At the intersection of a
spoke and a circle we shovel a pointer on the circle facing the spoke. In addition, near the
mid-way point of each circle (between two spokes) we shovel 'pointers' facing back to the nearest spoke
which in turn points back to the opening.
Each ice diver wears an ice harness under their BC. The tender (verified by the diver) then
attaches one end of a 100 line off to the two D-rings on the ice harness. A tender on the
surface keeps track of the diver and the slack of the line. The free end of the line (tender
end) is tied to an eyelet on a stake that is driven at an angle into the ice. Safety,
safety, safety!
The reasoning behind the wagon wheel is that if anyone ever got off their tether line they can
look up and find a spoke and then follow the pointers back to the hub (hole, opening). I don't
know what we'd do if we ever had a year without at least a dusting of snow on top of the ice :-)
Our ice diving 'training ground' is actually a high mountain lake in the center of one of our
ski resort towns. The section of lake we ice dive at is near the site of an old logging mill so
we stumble across big logs once in awhile. The bottom is sandy with very little vegetation so
there is not a lot to see. The fish are extremely slow at this time of year.
Taking a 'mental trip' by looking at the bubbles and the underside of the ice is the best
though! Other years we have had a little fun with the ice fishermen by sticking rubber
chickens up their ice fishing holes :-) Another fun thing is to either kneel or stand upside
down on the underside of the ice and tug three times indicating you want to be pulled out and
to go for a ride (like water skiing only better :-)!
More Specific Detailed Information on Ice Diving 2001
More Specific Detailed Information
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Omni Divers Underwater Services, L.L.C. incorporated May 1984 We are in our 28th year on the internet. Web site inception, June 21, 1996.
For more information on training and classes offered by
Omni Divers Underwater Services, L.L.C., e-mail us at omnidive@gmail.com Current Locations: Gray Court SC, Klamath Falls OR, Boise ID (360) 991-2999
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