Ice Diving is Cool!

I just got back from my newest Canadian outdoor winter experience - ice diving! If you know me you already know that I don’t go for the more ordinary Canadian winter pursuits like hockey but tent more towards the extreme. I have been a SCUBA diver for a few years now and I just love it. I have come to terms with the fact that I live in Canada and, unfortunately, I don’t have the disposable income to support multiple expeditions to the tropics just for the sake of a few dozen degrees difference in water temperature. I am the kind of diver who relishes going underwater year around right here in Canada. For me it is all about experiencing alternative realities and diverse (and sometimes extreme) situations. Whether that means hanging off the side of a frozen waterfall, juggling three chain saws or fabricating massive gas bombs for a special effects blow up on some movie shoot. For some reason I tend to gravitate towards these extremes. Nothing I do is “normal” and that is just fine with me.

When it comes to diving I am probably more happy exploring some old, mangled shipwreck down on the cold, dark bottom of the great lakes than I am drift diving along a bright coral reef in the Caribbean. Some folks can’t understand that but if there are any hard core cold water divers reading this they will know exactly what I am talking about.

These are some of the factors that caused me to jump at the chance when an instructor friend of mine asked me if I wanted to come along for some ice dive training last weekend. What could be better than chopping a big hole in 15“ of solid ice and diving underneath it where it would be cold, dark? An environment where humans don’t survive naturally and where we would be completely at the mercy of our equipment, our wits and some very recently acquired skills. Awesome!

So there we were standing on the beach in Barrie Ontario at 8:30am last Sunday. It was about -5C and there was ice on Lake Simcoe as far as the eye could see. Our small group of like minded lunatics carefully planned the team’s objective under the guidance of our Yoda-esque instructor - Dale. Did mention that Dale’s day job is leading a tactical gun team who patrol the Bruce Nuclear Power site keeping it (and us) safe from terrorists? Yup, this is the kind of dude who teaches folks like me how to dive under the ice!

First we had to get all our gear out onto the ice. That proved to be a little harder than expected as the only part of the lake not frozen 15” thick was the last 5’ around the shore. A few of us got wet feet because at this point we didn’t have our dry suits on yet. We set up camp a few hundred feet from shore and cut the hole. What do you cut a big triangular hole in the ice with? A chain saw of course! Don’t worry Mom, we substituted vegetable oil for chain oil to spare another small scale Gulf oil spill disaster. We cut a big triangular hole as it is much easier to claw your way back up out of the water at the tight angled corners. Details like this are important later in the process when your body is shunting all the blood from limbs to stave off hypothermia and you are trying to get out of the 32.0001F water (water freezes at 32F) with 100lbs of dive gear on.

Next we set up the gas cooker and the big lobster pot of water. The hot water was to pour on masks, gloves, frozen dry suit zippers and non-functioning regulators. We also set up a little “hide” so the designated rescue diver and others standing by but not directly involved in surface duties didn’t freeze to death.

After that we had to go over all the protocol. I had met with Dale earlier in the week and we went over everything in the classroom but somehow it all seemed much more important once we were out on the ice. With each new level of diving there are new skills, drills and protocols to learn. With ice diving it is all about staying connected to your exit point (triangular hole) and the surface (air). This is accomplished by way of a length of old school yellow polypropylene rope. We use this stuff as it is tough and it floats. The rope is always connects the diver(s) to the “tender” (rope manager) on the surface. This rope umbilical cord is our lifeline but it is even more than that as we use it as “coms” (communications) as well. Coms can go either way, from surface “tender” to diver or vice versa. One tug is “are you OK”. One tug back is an acknowledgement “yes, I am OK”. Two tugs is take or give slack. Three tugs is “come back” or “I’m coming back”. Four tugs is “emergency” in which case the surface team hauls the connected divers in pretty much as quick as they can.

We dove in teams of two with our instructor Dale on a rope by himself. The rescue diver was standing by on the surface tied to another rope ready to spring into action should the need arise. All the ropes were 100’ long with markings at 10’ increments. The end of each rope was firmly anchored to the ice on the surface with an extra long ice screw so that there was no way for a rope (and diver) to be lost in the hole.

As you can see we had all the bases pretty much covered. That still didn’t make going into the water and under the ice into the murk much easier. Everyone asks if it is cold but it is not really. With the dry suits, fancy wicking underwear and dry glove technology the only part actually in contact with the water was my cheeks. No, cold is not really the issue and I have been diving right through the winter anyway. Once under the ice my perception became much different and almost slowed down. More a sense of “holly S$#T, this is really pretty nuts” kind of full body sensation. As my tanks, precious life giving regulators and head banged on the ceiling of impenetrable ice I remember thinking “if I were to panic here that would really be pretty bad”. It was then that I realized exactly why we practice all those drills over and over again both in the pool. Why I pay hundreds of dollars every year to have my regulators serviced and kept up. And why I probably spend as much time training, reading and mentally preparing for diving as I do just diving for fun.

The ice dive was an amazing experience and we are actually doing it again this coming weekend. We have to get back under the there before our precious ice melts away. That will be the the last day of our course and I will become a certified ice diver. Me, I don’t do it for the certifications as much as for the experience of it. I embrace the adventure and look forward to many more of them under the ice and in whatever other “difficult” situations I can get myself into. I’ll keep you posted.