Ice Diving on the Wreck of U.S. La Vallee (Lake Champlain, VT)

[ScubaGypsy]

Thanks for sharing! Was that a little bit of free flow at the end? Saw the bubble rush just before surfacing.

Arg, yes there was a free flow, very frustrating! I was using Halcyon H-50D sealed diaphragm first stage regulators with ScubaPro S-600 primary regulator and a Halcyon rebadged SP G-250 back-up regulator. All the regulators were just serviced and detuned to 130 psi prior to this dive.

I kept them in my room overnight and then wrapped in a towel inside my truck until placing them onto my doubles as I kitted up. I was careful not to breathe out of them until I was underwater. As soon as I started breathing at around 10', it felt rather restrictive because of the detuning. My primary was fine for about 20 minutes and then started becoming a little bubbly so I switched to my backup and turned off my primary (right) valve. This was fine for another 5 minutes and then it too started bubbling. I then turned my primary valve back on, switched back to my primary regulator, turned my backup valve off and headed towards the upline. I had already circled the wreck 3 times however I would have enjoyed staying down another 20 minutes or so but up I went in a cloud of bubbles. I did have a 2 minutes deco obligation at 10 feet and then came on up in a stream of bubbles such that the topside crew said it looked like a jacuzzi. I used 1000 psi at depth, lost 1000 psi during the free flows and exited with 1400 psi so I wasn't in any concern about being without sufficient gas but was, and am, very frustrated with the free flowing. My total runtime was 28 minutes.

I have previously had free flowing issues during ice dives when I was not as careful so was extra attentive for this special ice dive and yet the result was similar though I had a little longer time until occurrence.

One future takeaway consideration is to use a separate drysuit fill bottle (which I have but don't usually enjoy the extra gear). I really didn't fill my drysuit or wing much though since once I was at depth and trimmed in, I stayed there. However any relief off of the first stage regulators can't hurt.

I'm also considering replacing my current regulators with Apeks MTX-R regulators for ice diving. I very much like my current regulators for all my other diving pursuits but this is too frustrating since I do enjoy a few yearly ice dives.

 

[jameseg]

Thanks for sharing - really nicely done video, especially with the historical background and extra drone footage. Wish all scuba videos were this well produced!

James

 

[macado]

Thanks! I enjoyed making the video. Adding the drone footage is new to me but it really adds another element to the video. I want to start incorporating drone footage and more "b-roll" into my dive videos.

 

[johndiver999]

I enjoyed the video and don’t want to sound critical, but it is such an unusual dive that the audience might have appreciated more of the mundane footage that showed what the dive was like.

Meaning some descent and ascent video, maybe a shot of the diver entering the water - As seen from below. Possibly more shots from behind a diver or have the diver in the foreground to give perspective and diversity in shots. Maybe a close up shot at the face of the diver ascending the ladder.
Maybe show the hanging deco bottles and rigging?

I really enjoyed the video, those are a few random ideas for other potentially interesting shots. Of course a lot of these ideas require a very willing subject/buddy or two who are willing to serve as models. Please don’t consider any of these ideas as criticism of the video- I thought it was excellent. It must be very cool to have no bubbles to ruin visibility on a dive like that.

 

[macado]

I enjoyed the video and don’t want to sound critical, but it is such an unusual dive that the audience might have appreciated more of the mundane footage that showed what the dive was like.

Meaning some descent and ascent video, maybe a shot of the diver entering the water - As seen from below. Possibly more shots from behind a diver or have the diver in the foreground to give perspective and diversity in shots. Maybe a close up shot at the face of the diver ascending the ladder.
Maybe show the hanging deco bottles and rigging?

I really enjoyed the video, those are a few random ideas for other potentially interesting shots. Of course a lot of these ideas require a very willing subject/buddy or two who are willing to serve as models. Please don’t consider any of these ideas as criticism of the video- I thought it was excellent. It must be very cool to have no bubbles to ruin visibility on a dive like that.

Absolutely. Some of that was planned but unfortunately my GoPro batteries do not do very well in the cold. I actually really like having divers in my videos as it gives perspective. I wanted a bunch of "b-roll" of divers descending/ascending, shots of the mooring, looking into the windows or going around the wreck.

I actually ascended first to tie us into the mooring and my two buddies joined about 5-10 minutes later. Most of the wreck footage was before they arrived. I wanted to get shots of them coming down the mooring line and us on deco but I wasn't able to accomplish this with a dead battery (which was frustrating).

Morale of the story, buy some fresh GoPro batteries that last longer than 20 minutes in cold water. Luckily my 2nd GoPro (on a tripod on the surface) lasted the entire duration.

 

[shoredivr]

Arg, yes there was a free flow, very frustrating! I was using Halcyon H-50D sealed diaphragm first stage regulators with ScubaPro S-600 primary regulator and a Halcyon rebadged SP G-250 back-up regulator. All the regulators were just serviced and detuned to 130 psi prior to this dive.

I kept them in my room overnight and then wrapped in a towel inside my truck until placing them onto my doubles as I kitted up. I was careful not to breathe out of them until I was underwater. As soon as I started breathing at around 10', it felt rather restrictive because of the detuning. My primary was fine for about 20 minutes and then started becoming a little bubbly so I switched to my backup and turned off my primary (right) valve. This was fine for another 5 minutes and then it too started bubbling. I then turned my primary valve back on, switched back to my primary regulator, turned my backup valve off and headed towards the upline. I had already circled the wreck 3 times however I would have enjoyed staying down another 20 minutes or so but up I went in a cloud of bubbles. I did have a 2 minutes deco obligation at 10 feet and then came on up in a stream of bubbles such that the topside crew said it looked like a jacuzzi. I used 1000 psi at depth, lost 1000 psi during the free flows and exited with 1400 psi so I wasn't in any concern about being without sufficient gas but was, and am, very frustrated with the free flowing. My total runtime was 28 minutes.

I have previously had free flowing issues during ice dives when I was not as careful so was extra attentive for this special ice dive and yet the result was similar though I had a little longer time until occurrence.

One future takeaway consideration is to use a separate drysuit fill bottle (which I have but don't usually enjoy the extra gear). I really didn't fill my drysuit or wing much though since once I was at depth and trimmed in, I stayed there. However any relief off of the first stage regulators can't hurt.

I'm also considering replacing my current regulators with Apeks MTX-R regulators for ice diving. I very much like my current regulators for all my other diving pursuits but this is too frustrating since I do enjoy a few yearly ice dives.

I was taught to get in the water and float with the second and first stages submerged for about two minutes to get the regs up to the water temperature, which is warmer than the air temperature the regs have been sitting at. Have not had a free flow using this method.

 

[ScubaGypsy]

I was taught to get in the water and float with the second and first stages submerged for about two minutes to get the regs up to the water temperature, which is warmer than the air temperature the regs have been sitting at. Have not had a free flow using this method.

In general that's good practice and what I attempted to do by not breathing until underwater. However on this particular day, the air was 35 F and the water was 31 F.

 

[AfterDark]

Really nice video, thanks for sharing

OP it looks like it was a lot of fun! Nice job with the videos too.

Hey Rich, not bad for a fresh water lake, huh?

 

[CT-Rich]

OP it looks like it was a lot of fun! Nice job with the videos too.

Hey Rich, not bad for a fresh water lake, huh?

Yes much more interesting than th 5’ of visibility sand, silt and occasional goose poop (to add variety to the landscape) that I have seen on most of my freshwater lake dives....

 

[BikerBecca]

Awesome video! Thanks for sharing.