Just got back from my "winter sport" vacation in the Czech republic.
We went to a place called "Svobodne Hermanice" to do an IANTD ice diving specialty. The group consisted (by the time we got there) of 4 students and the instructor.
IANTD treats ice diving a bit like being in a cave or wreck so line (and team) technique are essential. We practiced using the "PADI" technique tying in directly to a line tender on the surface and the "IANTD" technique of laying line... Of the two methods, obviously, the method of laying line is much easier in terms of freedom of movement and range but you lose direct communication with surface support. The method of tying in to a line held by a surface tender maintains communication but you sacrifice in simplicity, freedom of movement and range. The line laying thing itself more closely resembles the wreck technique than the cave technique (single line, no branching, no line arrows, wider anchor spacing). We dove mostly just under the ice for taking pictures and we used glacier screws to create our anchor points.
As with most of these kinds of things, the devil is in the details so I won't explain a lot about the course. If you're interested in ice diving, you'll need to take a specialty. What I can say, however, is that this particular location was very suitable for a course in ice diving. The quarry is about 600-800 metres long, about 200 metres wide and situated in a north/south direction. At the extreme north end is an easy entrance that is also easy to find back again if you happen to get disorientated and/or lose contact with your buddy and the line. There is a dive-centre in the village with accommodation for up to 12 and the area around the village is beautiful.
All in all we did 5 dives in two days. The first day the weather was nice. Air temps around the freezing point and water temps in the 2C/36F range. The second day, however, we did the dives with air temps in the -17C/2F range with a force 3 or 4 wind by the parking lot (the quarry is in a depression and the wind was less noticeable at the entry point). Needless to say these are pretty extreme conditions for diving and we were fortunate to have our planning and logistics worked out that we got everyone in the water without breaking anything or anyone's gear freezing beyond being usable. It's an interesting experience to see steam coming off of water only a couple of degrees above the freezing point. It even felt warm getting into the water. After a couple of minutes of laying in the water letting all the bolt-snaps defrost we were able to go. One of the divers (the instructor) got a hole in his drysuit (it was a trilam suit and it got frozen and the crimping just ... broke it). Which causes some good laughs when he went to take it off again and his butt was frozen to the inside of the suit .... LOL. I had to orally inflate my wing for most of the weekend because I found out that my inflator can't take this temperature and one of the other students nearly lost his camera when it broke loose during exit. Surprisingly to me, aside from some broken clips and the crimped drysuit we didn't have very many equipment problems at all.
All in all a very successful weekend and a lot of fun.
Incidentally, if you happen to be traveling to Svobodne Hermanice from Western Europe, it's best to avoid driving through Poland. The Polish roads look much better on a map than they are in reality and the Polish authorities have a nasty habit of stopping vehicles with foreign license plates for what can only be described as intense curiosity, which causes significant delays and isn't nearly as much fun for you as it is for them..... I think the last 15km before the Czech border took about 90 minutes of showing passports, explaining what we were doing there and why we were planning on going to some place in the middle of no-where for what looked to them like no good reason..... The Czech border guards had also never seen a Canadian crossing at that point and it took them about 45 minutes to confirm that I did indeed *not* need a visa to enter the country after all..... But good. If you drive via Prague the route is a little longer but the roads are much better and the border crossings into Germany are a little more professional.
R..
We went to a place called "Svobodne Hermanice" to do an IANTD ice diving specialty. The group consisted (by the time we got there) of 4 students and the instructor.
IANTD treats ice diving a bit like being in a cave or wreck so line (and team) technique are essential. We practiced using the "PADI" technique tying in directly to a line tender on the surface and the "IANTD" technique of laying line... Of the two methods, obviously, the method of laying line is much easier in terms of freedom of movement and range but you lose direct communication with surface support. The method of tying in to a line held by a surface tender maintains communication but you sacrifice in simplicity, freedom of movement and range. The line laying thing itself more closely resembles the wreck technique than the cave technique (single line, no branching, no line arrows, wider anchor spacing). We dove mostly just under the ice for taking pictures and we used glacier screws to create our anchor points.
As with most of these kinds of things, the devil is in the details so I won't explain a lot about the course. If you're interested in ice diving, you'll need to take a specialty. What I can say, however, is that this particular location was very suitable for a course in ice diving. The quarry is about 600-800 metres long, about 200 metres wide and situated in a north/south direction. At the extreme north end is an easy entrance that is also easy to find back again if you happen to get disorientated and/or lose contact with your buddy and the line. There is a dive-centre in the village with accommodation for up to 12 and the area around the village is beautiful.
All in all we did 5 dives in two days. The first day the weather was nice. Air temps around the freezing point and water temps in the 2C/36F range. The second day, however, we did the dives with air temps in the -17C/2F range with a force 3 or 4 wind by the parking lot (the quarry is in a depression and the wind was less noticeable at the entry point). Needless to say these are pretty extreme conditions for diving and we were fortunate to have our planning and logistics worked out that we got everyone in the water without breaking anything or anyone's gear freezing beyond being usable. It's an interesting experience to see steam coming off of water only a couple of degrees above the freezing point. It even felt warm getting into the water. After a couple of minutes of laying in the water letting all the bolt-snaps defrost we were able to go. One of the divers (the instructor) got a hole in his drysuit (it was a trilam suit and it got frozen and the crimping just ... broke it). Which causes some good laughs when he went to take it off again and his butt was frozen to the inside of the suit .... LOL. I had to orally inflate my wing for most of the weekend because I found out that my inflator can't take this temperature and one of the other students nearly lost his camera when it broke loose during exit. Surprisingly to me, aside from some broken clips and the crimped drysuit we didn't have very many equipment problems at all.
All in all a very successful weekend and a lot of fun.
Incidentally, if you happen to be traveling to Svobodne Hermanice from Western Europe, it's best to avoid driving through Poland. The Polish roads look much better on a map than they are in reality and the Polish authorities have a nasty habit of stopping vehicles with foreign license plates for what can only be described as intense curiosity, which causes significant delays and isn't nearly as much fun for you as it is for them..... I think the last 15km before the Czech border took about 90 minutes of showing passports, explaining what we were doing there and why we were planning on going to some place in the middle of no-where for what looked to them like no good reason..... The Czech border guards had also never seen a Canadian crossing at that point and it took them about 45 minutes to confirm that I did indeed *not* need a visa to enter the country after all..... But good. If you drive via Prague the route is a little longer but the roads are much better and the border crossings into Germany are a little more professional.
R..
