Yesterday I had the pleasure of diving with a group with M&M Diving out of Menominee in Moon Lake near Iron Mountain, Michigan. We had about eight divers that braved the frigid Upper Peninsula weather of seven degrees and the occasional snow squalls that had a wind chill of -24. Ice was about twelve inches, visibility varied. Lake has a 60ft hole on the far North end and we thought that we were on a 40ft area. We augured in our three corners, augured in a line of holes sort of connecting the dots and used an antique ice saw to finish the the job. It was sort of funny, the diver who lives on the lake picked a site about 100 yards from his dock and not knowing the distance, nobody brought a sled. But we soon commandeered a canoe and tied a line to a quad and hauled everything to the site. we found a layer of slush on the ice below the snow, due to lots of ice fishing activities in the area. We lost sight of the coin at about 20ft.
We got everything ready at the hole and dressed in the warmth of a house!! Woo Hoo! Thanks Bruce!! I was the first to go in. Visibility was about 25-30 and indeed the coin was correct, we were in 20ft of water. On a 125ft line, no one ever found any deeper than 31ft. And in that weather, no one was wanting to pack up and cut a new hole. We found an old wooden row boat on the slope going to shore, about ten 55 gallon drums, a snorkel and one lone fish. Something that I have never seen, when we went to the deeper water we ran into a vertical wall of suspended "stuff" It was like we swam into a fog bank that corresponded with the edge of the vegetation line!?!?! It went up to within 10ft of the ceiling!?!? I have almost always dealt with horizontal layers, never anything like this? Water temp was a balmy 39F. I didn't get a temp in/out of the fog bank. With a light I was able to only penetrate it by about 15ft. Pretty thick stuff.
I got out and line tended for the next divers and was frozen stiff (literally). We had slush forming on the hole. We had several first stage freeze ups on the surface that was easily taken care of with some warm water. You know we all joke about mermaids but we did have a lovely walk out on the ice to visit us in a full length fur!! She must have been warm in that thing or she just could not believe what she was seeing because she hung out and watched for quite a while.
After all had dove we packed up, shoved the block back into the hole and headed to the house to get ready for pre-game. All in all a GREAT day of diving.
QUESTION: When pulling the block back into the hole, is it the hole that gets larger or the block that gets smaller??? You Ice Divers know what I mean.
Jeff
We got everything ready at the hole and dressed in the warmth of a house!! Woo Hoo! Thanks Bruce!! I was the first to go in. Visibility was about 25-30 and indeed the coin was correct, we were in 20ft of water. On a 125ft line, no one ever found any deeper than 31ft. And in that weather, no one was wanting to pack up and cut a new hole. We found an old wooden row boat on the slope going to shore, about ten 55 gallon drums, a snorkel and one lone fish. Something that I have never seen, when we went to the deeper water we ran into a vertical wall of suspended "stuff" It was like we swam into a fog bank that corresponded with the edge of the vegetation line!?!?! It went up to within 10ft of the ceiling!?!? I have almost always dealt with horizontal layers, never anything like this? Water temp was a balmy 39F. I didn't get a temp in/out of the fog bank. With a light I was able to only penetrate it by about 15ft. Pretty thick stuff.
I got out and line tended for the next divers and was frozen stiff (literally). We had slush forming on the hole. We had several first stage freeze ups on the surface that was easily taken care of with some warm water. You know we all joke about mermaids but we did have a lovely walk out on the ice to visit us in a full length fur!! She must have been warm in that thing or she just could not believe what she was seeing because she hung out and watched for quite a while.
After all had dove we packed up, shoved the block back into the hole and headed to the house to get ready for pre-game. All in all a GREAT day of diving.
QUESTION: When pulling the block back into the hole, is it the hole that gets larger or the block that gets smaller??? You Ice Divers know what I mean.
Jeff
