Under ice diving?

[shiney]

It’s interesting to read about divers who want to dive under the ice using cave dive or modified cave diving rules. I am only a cavern diver with hopes of becoming a cave diver soon. I have been diving in ice cold water for many years and have logged hundred of dives in winter conditions. The idea of going under the ice with a cave dive reel and heading off into the deep blue water really scares me. When you enter the water with only a dive real and head away from the hole it does not take very long to loose sight of the hole. Once you loose sight of the hole you your life is hanging on the hopes that that one line does not break.
The one thing I did learn from the cave divers I talked to in Cave country in Florida is that they have as many redundant safety features as possible. If you enter the water and dive under the ice you better be tethered to the hole and have at the very lest one dive team at the surface ready to help you if you end up in trouble. I might entertain the idea of using a reel, but I would also insist that my buddy also had one. Unlike diving in a cave that actually has some sort of reference back to the surface. Diving under the ice offers little of no reference back to the hole. Once you get a very short distance from the hole and look towards the surface everything looks the same. If you get in trouble under the ice and don't have a solid plan all you have is a guess which way is back to the little 10 foot triangle cut in the ice. I won't use ice diving training for cave diving don't use cave diving training for ice diving.

This is one of the reasons we wanted to have a dialogue on. What should the base line be for executing a safe dive using cave techniques (environmental, training)? We have had a couple of deaths over the years, and with access to training becoming easier, there seems to be more and more divers wanting to ice dive. There are really no hard and fast rules you can use on all ice dives. I know of more people who have free flow issues in fresh water at 32-34F then I know of divers doing dives in salt water at 28-31F.

The quarry we use has fantastic viz, if you are somewhat familiar with it and you cut the hole in a logical place. You can use the UW terrain to navigate to the hole. The water is a balmy 37 which doesn't seem to lend itself to causing free flows easily. Modified cave techniques works very well in this environment.

On the other hand, in a completely ice covered river, where current & debris may cause a line to be cut, doing a dive using cave technique is stupid, and the diver should probably be tethered.

.............

-not exceed a depth of 150 feet on any dive and not exceed a depth of 100 feet on most dives based on certain criteria. ***

-only dive when a suit heater is available. ...................

I personally wont do a deco dive when the water is that cold, suit heater or not. I do not feel like deciding if I should bail on my deco due to hypothermia, if I ever got a suit flood . Furthermore, though your core will be warm with a suit heater what about the off gassing in the extremities?

We choose to keep our depths relatively shallow, as we have concerns about adiabatic cooling at depth where there is more flow going through your reg...possibly causing free flows again.

[caverkevin]

I have been ice diving, cave style, since about 2002. I quit using a tether when another diver thought it would be funny to do a four pull on my rope. After I got back to depth, the tether was tied off to a sunken boat and removed.

First there is no reason to do exploration under the ice cave style. Check out new site during the summer when it is open water. Ice diving, cave style is for the sake of getting wet because of cabin fever.

Site selection is very important. The need to have a few landmarks and good natural navigation. The divers need to have open water experience navigating between these landmarks (sunken boats, car, rock piles, ect..) Then place the hole just above one of these landmarks.

This way the line becomes a secondary form of navigation and not the sole form of navigate. A diver lost off the line could find the way back to the hole by knowing how it relates to landmarks, bottom topography and depth.

Then the diver needs to have one to two short ice screws available during the dive, along with the safety spools. These might be needed for a lost line search, buddy or hole search. A screw can be anchored into the underside of the ice and line attached.

From the hole place a line straight down to the landmark. This way a lost diver anchored and doing sweeps will have something to hook around with their safety spool.

Also I use two ice screws, two carabiners and loop of webbing to anchor the plug. Once in the water I will place a screw into the plug, on the opposite side of the hole. Then another screw into the ice sheet, a little bit farther out from the hole. Then leash the plug into the anchor. This way the hole can not be closed until a diver disconnects the carabiners on the leash.

These are the procedures I use for ice diving. I hope you enjoy your winters up north. I'll be up for some wreck diving after Lake Huron warms up a little.

Cheers!!

Kevin

[JDostal]

Sounds similar to what we were going to do.

Definitely agree that using these techniques only in familiar areas with good underwater landmarks.

We do a lot of quarry diving up here in the winter so lots of rocks to tie on to.

[rjack]

I am full cave and went ice diving at Morrison's in Quebec back in Jan ('09). All in all, I thought it was way friendlier than cave diving. Navigation was a breeze since there were features everywhere and you could see them from great distances between the vis and the ambient light. You couldn't silt this place out with a hundred scooter prop-washes. My max depth was ~60ft and the water wasn't all that cold at 38-39F. Nobody in our group of 8 had any freeflows. I dove a stage on dive1day1 and backgas in double 130s dive2day2. Used about 50cf in an hour both days.

Probably the greatest risk ws getting in and out. Running a line ~200ft from the hole at the beach was probably safer than using a tether immediately over the structures (planes, boats, etc) since that would have required a more complicated exit than merely standing up and walking out with doubles on.

Thanks to Chan, Kevin, Steve, Jen, Oren, Frankie, and Eric for fun times.

RJ

[Mark Dougherty]

The main problem with ice diving using cave techniques is that a lost line drill is much, much harder because of the lack of walls, possible lack of floor (if the water is deep) and possibility of current which may sweep the line away from your position as well as make underwater navigation very difficult. It doesn't take much imagination to see that a broken line could easily be fatal in these conditions.

That would suggest to me that it is essential to use strong line and to secure the reel to your harness using a lanyard. Having a second reel and some way of securing the end of a search line it to the ice would also be very useful. But on balance I think the traditional "elephant rope" with a minder on the surface is safer.

I have gone cave diving under ice, but that's because there was a cave below a frozen pool

Mark

[JDostal]

Good point. The line breaking is my big concern with this...we'd be putting a lot of stress on the line swimming around. A backup would be nice...

All in all it is a lot easier to avoid the argument in the first place. I just usually end up ice diving with another crowd anyway and it's easy enough to grab a rope and go so I'll probably just stick with that.

[JE]

***I am not going to tell you what lays below the frozen surface of Lk Superior in 60'+ NE of Bayfield's inlet-! Under the ice-! ^_^
{during the winter anyways}{Ice usually gone by late April}
Probably still there too-!

Have fun-!

je

[JDostal]

?!

Hrmmmm....

[TONY CHANEY]

***I am not going to tell you what lays below the frozen surface of Lk Superior in 60'+ NE of Bayfield's inlet-! Under the ice-! ^_^
{during the winter anyways}{Ice usually gone by late April}
Probably still there too-!

Have fun-!

je

That's just wrong to leave us hanging like that. Please tell more..it has just got to be too good not to tell.

[JE]

That's just wrong to leave us hanging like that. Please tell more..it has just got to be too good not to tell.

Tony:

Lol ^_^....................It is pretty unique, after all most anything left on the bottom of Lake Superior will be preserved for a very long time. After all, thermocline temps will range in the lower 40's or even upper 30's-! There may be six of them laying in a rough line between Bayfield & Madeline Island. Went thru the ice during a spring thaw some years ago. The one I came upon was in mint shape & the baby blue paint still shown thru as though it was yesterday. Quite the suprise as you may imagine. But I was looking for something else, & never expected to come across this-! {he-he-he} ck the photos in your library of early American history & you may figure some things out-!
Be nice, I may tell you guys eventually............>
You gotta love this

Gak