Ice Divers: Potential 'Advanced Ice Diver' specialty course

[rjack321]

I figured it was due to freeze up and the necessity to put as much air in the suit for insulation as possible anyway. And with single tanks that's not a prohibitively large bubble.This had some nice pictures of the program overall. I can see why tethers are not considered valuable.
http://www.peterbrueggeman.com/nsf/fguide/scuba-diving.pdf

 

[lowviz]

@rjack321, sincere thanks for that link. Fascinating read!

 

[Erich S]

Many feel that ice diving actually belongs in Tec. In fact, Naui has it classified that way.

 

[lowviz]

OK, fine with that. But not everyone feels that way.

I see recreational ice as more akin to PADI Tec 40. They round off all the sharp edges and you get to experience a 'tech like' experience.

 

[northernone]

Hopefully in line with exploring what might make an advanced ice diving course remarkable here's some controversial thoughts about ice diving.

"Dope-on-a-rope" with a surface tender seems a good stretegy for pulling up divers out of a situation they aren't properly trained to in in the first place. Kinda a cold water cavern class without any of the responsibility of navigation.

It's fairly hard to drown someone tied on the end of a rope like a teabag when the site has no entanglement hazards. The wisdom of recreational ice diving I question, but there's a good history of it being done safely with nominal skills when a leach is used.

Where I'm coming from is if someone is an experienced cold water diver the only thing ice diving adds (in the form of an extra slippery see through ceiling) is an overhead environment. Which is a commonly defined as the cavern zone.

The club style polar bear dip ice diving event is quite different from diving in an overhead environment.

Is there another specialized advanced course which trains for how most active ice divers actually dive? It seems most of us are cave/wreck divers who apply those overhead environment strategies to our home cold waters when the surface hardens.

In support of ongoing discussion,
Cameron

 

[lowviz]

Hopefully in line with exploring what might make an advanced ice diving course remarkable ...

Fair enough, let's toss it around a bit.

...//... "Dope-on-a-rope" with a surface tender seems a good strategy for pulling up divers out of a situation they aren't properly trained to be in in the first place.

In most basic ice classes, the diver learns a few simple line-pull commands (to the tender) and enjoys the dive on the end of an unmarked (as to length) tether. So the tender only has a general idea of where the diver is at any given moment and has little to do other than keep the line free of slack, obey diver commands, and not cross lines if two diver/tender teams are independently operating in the same hole.

In PSD, when searching a mud bottom lake, you aren't going to see anything for your entire dive yet we all came back with carabiners that were thrown into the water as search objects. The only way to do this is to use a tender directed search. In that scenario, it is up to the diver/tender team to be able to communicate on a higher level. As tenders, we all learned how to put a diver in an exact spot and conduct a regular search pattern with no gaps in it. As divers, we all learned how to obey our tender's line signals and keep ourselves properly positioned in total darkness while conducting an effective bottom search.

So, for the 'situation they are not properly trained to be in' part, I contend that the tether is what changes things so that they are properly trained to be in that environment under those conditions.

...//... It's fairly hard to drown someone tied on the end of a rope like a teabag when the site has no entanglement hazards. The wisdom of recreational ice diving I question, but there's a good history of it being done safely with nominal skills when a leash is used.

I think that the safety record itself speaks to the wisdom of recreational ice diving. I also believe that there are never no entanglement hazards. Dealing with such entanglements is given lecture time, but nothing is practiced in basic ice. In PSD, it is practiced.

...//... Where I'm coming from is if someone is an experienced cold water diver the only thing ice diving adds (in the form of an extra slippery see through ceiling) is an overhead environment.

OK, what does AOW add over OW: More experience and a bit more personal responsibility.

Why can't the same be done for recreational ice? Additionally, it is all about the ice. Some divers find it mind-blowing, others find it cold and boring. The visibility that one typically finds under the ice is most often very good. I'm usually happy with 20' viz in summer diving. Silting up the bottom is also a problem as there is usually no current to clean up your mess.

...//... Is there another specialized advanced course which trains for how most active ice divers actually dive?

I would expect that most active ice divers use tech skills. I envision Advanced Ice training to remain solely within recreational standards.

 

[chrisch]

... most ice deaths are because of being UNTETHERD and getting lost , ......

That is an interesting statistic. I have no access to any data so cannot really say much about it. My concern would be that this suggests that the current training is very poor if students/graduates become untethered. It seems to me that the ability to remain attached to a rope is rather less demanding than spelling one's own name.

I have no beef with the idea of having a surface person on the other end of a rope if that works for the circumstances. It is important to understand this generally means the diver is solo and therefore should adopt the appropriate solo diving protocols especially a fully redundant gas source such as a pony tank. I am aware that a lot of commercial ice "courses" do not mandate a pony/doubles.

Getting lost is easy in the featureless sub-ice desert that is typical of many boring lakes. Suspending a strobe or similar is a good idea and the book suggests using snow (where present) to create a star effect to point out the entry hole. Using a line (tether) to stop getting lost is sensible enough. Personally I cannot see any difference between that and cave line techniques. (Other than pulling the corpse out )

The ice itself is just an overhead environment that needs to be dealt with, unless it is the point of the dive (to look at the ice) which, as I suggest, is something of a tick box - done once or twice and never again for most divers - hence the basic course with no real skills training. I can think of so many ways to "advance" that and make a good and enjoyable course with real value to the diver but it does not fit into what we often think of as "recreational" IMHO.

 

[lowviz]

It seems to me that the ability to remain attached to a rope is rather less demanding than spelling one's own name.

We were taught that the diver was the real threat. The two scenarios were disconnecting to clear an entanglement or disconnecting to be able to reach the search object. That is why the tender duct tapes the carabiner on the diver.

An entangled PSD diver has been taught to wait for assistance. The tender will almost immediately sense the entanglement or lack of "OK/OK" line pulls. The fully dressed backup diver will clip onto the tether and bring a contingency bottle. Entanglements can be anywhere along the line and they are best cleared starting from the unentangled end.

(The search diver always carries redundant air.)

 

[chrisch]

We were taught that the diver was the real threat. The two scenarios were disconnecting to clear an entanglement or disconnecting to be able to reach the search object. That is why the tender duct tapes the carabiner on the diver.

I am sure the unfortunate people that have got lost were primarily divers that fit your description and disconnected themselves. In my view this is why the more advanced skills of line work that come from cave diving are a better solution (for those wanting to routinely dive below ice). The "course" offered by PADI and others is essentially a supervised experience, not a training course. Nothing wrong with that - it gives a great experience and keeps the dive industry going. The learning element is in dealing with cold water and coping with the new situation. Again all good stuff.

In northern Europe (apart from Scandinavia) it is not really cold enough to do much "serious" sub ice exploration. The lake we used to dive in ices over but to no great thickness. Entry and egress is from the bank and the greatest danger is line entanglement in the detritus common on bank sides. If you lost the line for some reason following the slope back up will find the edge of the lake and the thin ice that can easily be broken.

With good thick ice you can work on it is easy enough to have a (roped) drop tank with a strobe fitted. The divers can line off from that rather than risk the (thin) line getting cut on the ice. If the vis is good the strobe should be more than enough to cover a decent exploration, even without a reel and line. If descending to a wreck (or other feature) in a lake then a good stout line can be used the same as a shot line.

Your diver team can easily overcome minor entanglement issues that are a problem to the solo diver model that the so called "recreational" ice experiences use. Multiple roped divers are best left to the public service experts who train in that discipline frequently.

There is - I am sure - room for an "advanced" ice training package that would offer a balanced review of all the techniques. Above all else it should move from the one person tether (dope on a rope as someone put it - very apt) and back to good team based diving principles that are used in other overhead environments.

 

[rjack321]

"Dope-on-a-rope" with a surface tender seems a good stretegy for pulling up divers out of a situation they aren't properly trained to in in the first place. Kinda a cold water cavern class without any of the responsibility of navigation.

It's fairly hard to drown someone tied on the end of a rope like a teabag when the site has no entanglement hazards. The wisdom of recreational ice diving I question, but there's a good history of it being done safely with nominal skills when a leach is used.

My understanding from the Antarctic program is that 1) there's no silt or plankton to speak of to alter the stellar vis and 2) a diver directly under and in contact with the ice is in serious danger of being frozen into place in the partially frozen slushy underside. So hauling someone up by the line and having them become buoyant and bump into the underside of the ice could be a disaster worse than drowning (you don't even get the body back)

I see the value in tenders for PSD diving (under ice or otherwise). I'm not sure how you create an "advanced ice" class that is both tended and not basically a rudimentary PSD class.

All my limited ice diving has been as if it were a lighted cave. The difference I see is that in a cave if you lose the line there are lost line protocols. Those protocols don't work as well in giant wide open spaces with no walls or nearby ceiling. They don't work at all in cross currents (ie a frozen river)