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I’ll attempt to give my unbiased opinions and observations of what sport ice diving is all about. In another thread, Ice Diving - Tips? you can read Team 1’s report. This post is Team 2’s report and it is written to add to Bob’s information. So, please take the time to read what @rhwestfall wrote before continuing here.
Be advised that this will be a bit long, I like to write…
Ice diving. I’ve taken various dive courses from a grand total of nine instructors across many agencies. @abnfrog is my 9th instructor. Instructors are all different, very different. My experience with them ranges from one I would like to forget to a course that I didn’t pass in Florida and would dearly like to go back and scratch that itch, to several others that I would love to repeat. I suggest to the neonate diver that you resist the urge to continue with your OW instructor just because you think that you had a good experience and you just happened upon the best instructor in the world. Realize that this is a very hard thing to say being someone who had the most incredible fortune to have Tim O’Leary as his OW instructor. I don’t give a hoot about agencies, but I do try to do my homework when it comes to the instructor. I’m a solo diver, but not under the ice. No solo under the ice, ice diving is “safe” but ONLY when done correctly. There must be a solid connection between you and your tender. My tender was Arturo. He dove a wetsuit and logged the longest dive of Team 2. He is the coolest badass little Canadian Peruvian that I’ve ever met. Yes, I can use his name, I have permission. Major cojones. He is a DM on his way to becoming an instructor. So was Harry, both of them will make superior instructors someday. I will be able to say that I knew them back when... Sorry, getting ahead of the story.
You only need an AOW card to sign up for ice diving. That should tell you something about how safely it can be done. Ice diving is a real, no joke, technical course. You are in an overhead environment that is not to be taken lightly. I’ve previously been under the ice in a grueling PSD course that requires five people just to get onto the ice (at any thickness) to conduct a rescue/recovery op. Ice poisoned me. I was really, really jonesing to get back under solid ice just for fun.
In another thread, Bob had found a course in Canada. It was full. *disappointed* I voiced my disappointment. I get a PM from the instructor. Call me at xxx. Ok. I start asking him questions, he does the same to me. I get a spot in a class Tue-Wed after Bob’s weekend class. Sweet!
Shocked at the cost of last minute travel! I keep at it, this just has to work. A Travelocity dude spent well over an hour and came up with me flying to Sudbury and then driving the two and a half hours though WILDERNESS to Temagami. Lodging? I tell the agent that he instructor provides that. Nope. Best price includes lodging in Northern Paradise Lodge and a rental car. Just do it. I did.
The lodge was a trip. Serious breakfast and dinner. Pies. Yum!!! White rhubarb, mixed berry, apple, strawberry, on and on… Meals are “family style”. I had the most amazing conversations with fur trappers, hunters, and ice fishermen. A couple of them were divers and I got beat up pretty badly. You came up here to be stuffed through a hole in the ice when you could have gone just as far south to dive in bathwater, eh?
I came up a day early, Steve’s suggestion. I get oriented and do some easy prep. Bob (thanks bud) suggested that I not drive. So flying limited my gear. I used Steve’s BC, tanks, and weightbelt.
First day:
No diving, all interactive lectures. Steve’s ex special forces persona comes out bigtime. Clear, concise, organized. Mission: You will be able to conduct a safe ice dive without me present if you pass. Wow. So this isn’t a dunk, see the ice, and repeat course. Steve was also training his DM’s so Team 2 consisted of two students and two ice certified DM’s. Pretty decent ratio. Steve keeps it light and we had fun busting on each other. But be advised that Steve can (and did) come down hard on each and every one of us for anything that was potentially unsafe. No discussing it. You just don’t do that **** or you are out of the course. Covered everything in detail. Remember, the objective is to be able to do this on your own and safely.
Dive day:
We suit up. I can’t get into my DS due to an added undergarment. Steve is pissed. I told you to check everything yesterday! Damn, one simple addition bites me. So I punt and dive with just my Aclima undies. I was fine. Gloves are a big deal. The Canadian military diver was miserable in his 7 mil gloves. I almost never do product endorsements, but my cheap 5mil XS “Dry Five” gloves kept me warm.
Team 1 cut the initial hole, it was frozen solid for Team 2 but still an easier cut. That manual Ice saw was amazing. Beat the hell out of a chainsaw. We discussed this at the lodge. Laughter and more abuse. Suggestion was to grind all the rakers off the chain and use vegetable oil instead of bar oil. You know you got it right when it looks like a fire hose blowing water all over you.
Line tending really sucks in freezing wind. Temps were below -20C at night and just really cold during the day. Constantly grooming the hole to keep it clear. Fine granular snow blows into the hole and initiates freezing. Constant grooming until we get divers in the water. Edges of the hole were rounding over, sure sign of subfreezing conditions.
Diving: Safe, warm, and fun. Go do whatever, it is your dive. Not a tender directed dive that I was expecting. So different from PSD ice, tender directs your every move on that one. This is just fun. I headed toward Steve’s dock, really interesting to drift above the silt (under the ice) and still be able to watch the little crayfish. Deep (for me) has nothing at all to do with ice diving.
I began to fully grasp the connection between tender and diver. Communicate by line pulls, coded by the number of pulls. I could feel Arturo stop and adjust gear when it was my turn to line tend for him. Line tending is an art, I’m getting it.
I could go on and on, but it is time to cut it off and post this. But not before major thanks to Roxanne. Spectacular! Oh, and Team 1 ate up all the chili! Thanks guys. No worries, Team 2 got her amazing spaghetti sauce (wow) and honest hospitality. How did you get so lucky, Steve?
One last observation. Ice diving is brutal on the instructor. There is much prep that has to be done before you can stuff a student under the ice. Steve takes it to the next level. You (student) WILL be able to do this yourself without an instructor present if you pass.
I passed. What an adventure!
DM's on left, students on right.
82nd Airborne Duck watching over me and Arturo line tending. I'm good.
Success!
Be advised that this will be a bit long, I like to write…
Ice diving. I’ve taken various dive courses from a grand total of nine instructors across many agencies. @abnfrog is my 9th instructor. Instructors are all different, very different. My experience with them ranges from one I would like to forget to a course that I didn’t pass in Florida and would dearly like to go back and scratch that itch, to several others that I would love to repeat. I suggest to the neonate diver that you resist the urge to continue with your OW instructor just because you think that you had a good experience and you just happened upon the best instructor in the world. Realize that this is a very hard thing to say being someone who had the most incredible fortune to have Tim O’Leary as his OW instructor. I don’t give a hoot about agencies, but I do try to do my homework when it comes to the instructor. I’m a solo diver, but not under the ice. No solo under the ice, ice diving is “safe” but ONLY when done correctly. There must be a solid connection between you and your tender. My tender was Arturo. He dove a wetsuit and logged the longest dive of Team 2. He is the coolest badass little Canadian Peruvian that I’ve ever met. Yes, I can use his name, I have permission. Major cojones. He is a DM on his way to becoming an instructor. So was Harry, both of them will make superior instructors someday. I will be able to say that I knew them back when... Sorry, getting ahead of the story.
You only need an AOW card to sign up for ice diving. That should tell you something about how safely it can be done. Ice diving is a real, no joke, technical course. You are in an overhead environment that is not to be taken lightly. I’ve previously been under the ice in a grueling PSD course that requires five people just to get onto the ice (at any thickness) to conduct a rescue/recovery op. Ice poisoned me. I was really, really jonesing to get back under solid ice just for fun.
In another thread, Bob had found a course in Canada. It was full. *disappointed* I voiced my disappointment. I get a PM from the instructor. Call me at xxx. Ok. I start asking him questions, he does the same to me. I get a spot in a class Tue-Wed after Bob’s weekend class. Sweet!
Shocked at the cost of last minute travel! I keep at it, this just has to work. A Travelocity dude spent well over an hour and came up with me flying to Sudbury and then driving the two and a half hours though WILDERNESS to Temagami. Lodging? I tell the agent that he instructor provides that. Nope. Best price includes lodging in Northern Paradise Lodge and a rental car. Just do it. I did.
The lodge was a trip. Serious breakfast and dinner. Pies. Yum!!! White rhubarb, mixed berry, apple, strawberry, on and on… Meals are “family style”. I had the most amazing conversations with fur trappers, hunters, and ice fishermen. A couple of them were divers and I got beat up pretty badly. You came up here to be stuffed through a hole in the ice when you could have gone just as far south to dive in bathwater, eh?
I came up a day early, Steve’s suggestion. I get oriented and do some easy prep. Bob (thanks bud) suggested that I not drive. So flying limited my gear. I used Steve’s BC, tanks, and weightbelt.
First day:
No diving, all interactive lectures. Steve’s ex special forces persona comes out bigtime. Clear, concise, organized. Mission: You will be able to conduct a safe ice dive without me present if you pass. Wow. So this isn’t a dunk, see the ice, and repeat course. Steve was also training his DM’s so Team 2 consisted of two students and two ice certified DM’s. Pretty decent ratio. Steve keeps it light and we had fun busting on each other. But be advised that Steve can (and did) come down hard on each and every one of us for anything that was potentially unsafe. No discussing it. You just don’t do that **** or you are out of the course. Covered everything in detail. Remember, the objective is to be able to do this on your own and safely.
Dive day:
We suit up. I can’t get into my DS due to an added undergarment. Steve is pissed. I told you to check everything yesterday! Damn, one simple addition bites me. So I punt and dive with just my Aclima undies. I was fine. Gloves are a big deal. The Canadian military diver was miserable in his 7 mil gloves. I almost never do product endorsements, but my cheap 5mil XS “Dry Five” gloves kept me warm.
Team 1 cut the initial hole, it was frozen solid for Team 2 but still an easier cut. That manual Ice saw was amazing. Beat the hell out of a chainsaw. We discussed this at the lodge. Laughter and more abuse. Suggestion was to grind all the rakers off the chain and use vegetable oil instead of bar oil. You know you got it right when it looks like a fire hose blowing water all over you.
Line tending really sucks in freezing wind. Temps were below -20C at night and just really cold during the day. Constantly grooming the hole to keep it clear. Fine granular snow blows into the hole and initiates freezing. Constant grooming until we get divers in the water. Edges of the hole were rounding over, sure sign of subfreezing conditions.
Diving: Safe, warm, and fun. Go do whatever, it is your dive. Not a tender directed dive that I was expecting. So different from PSD ice, tender directs your every move on that one. This is just fun. I headed toward Steve’s dock, really interesting to drift above the silt (under the ice) and still be able to watch the little crayfish. Deep (for me) has nothing at all to do with ice diving.
I began to fully grasp the connection between tender and diver. Communicate by line pulls, coded by the number of pulls. I could feel Arturo stop and adjust gear when it was my turn to line tend for him. Line tending is an art, I’m getting it.
I could go on and on, but it is time to cut it off and post this. But not before major thanks to Roxanne. Spectacular! Oh, and Team 1 ate up all the chili! Thanks guys. No worries, Team 2 got her amazing spaghetti sauce (wow) and honest hospitality. How did you get so lucky, Steve?
One last observation. Ice diving is brutal on the instructor. There is much prep that has to be done before you can stuff a student under the ice. Steve takes it to the next level. You (student) WILL be able to do this yourself without an instructor present if you pass.
I passed. What an adventure!
DM's on left, students on right.
82nd Airborne Duck watching over me and Arturo line tending. I'm good.
Success!
