Ice diving is a lot of fun. Once you get past the cold, which really isn't bad at all if you have the right gear, there are a lot of really unique things to experience under the ice.
For one, all of the air pockets look and act a lot like mercury. It's really neat to just play with the bubbles, bat them around and watch them come back together.
Plus the ice itself just looks really neat. Most of the time I spend on one of these dives is just right at the surface, just looking at the ice and, providing there's no snow on top of it, being able to see the rest of the world through the ice. You can swim around under other people and watch them walk around above you. How often do you get to see what the floor feels like?
But my favorite thing to do is to just stand on the ice, upside down, and walk around. You inflate your suit and your BC (bouyancy compensator) and it just holds you against the ice like gravity. It's awkward at first, but eventually your brain kind of flips, and it feels like you're actually just walking around right side up. Only there's water all
above you. And then when you start walking, it's kind of like what it must have been like for the Apollo astronauts to walk on the moon. Gravity isn't quite right, and you tend to bounce a little higher and feel a little lighter than normal. You tend to actually forget that you're really upside down.
Then, it's kind of a mindflip to walk over to the hole you just came in, and look into it, and see other people standing completely opposite of the way you are, looking back down at you. And then you jump
down into the hole, and your feet coming popping out onto the surface, and at that moment your brain realizes that you've been upside down the whole time, and just whoosh... you're back to normal. It's quite a rush.
But the fun doesn't stop there. You swim out as far as your tether will allow you to, get upside down again, and send the signal to your line tender, who then starts pulling you in as fast as they can. And there you are, upside down, under the ice, and you're skating towards the hole. If your line tender's good enough, you won't even crash into the hole.
I have a few pictures of my first ice dive on my (really poorly made - and all but abandoned) website. Nothing from under the ice, unfortunately, and none of them are really very flattering, but it gives you an idea of some of the logistics involved with getting an ice dive together, and all of the team effort that goes into getting the hole cut and keeping the divers safe. You can check them out if you like.
http://doof.webryders.com/ice_diving.htm
Author
Topic: Thursday -- No build tonight (Read 2123 times)