Ice Diving was one of my favorite winter diving activities. While others were off in the warm tropics, diving in Florida or hibernating, I was out Ice Diving.  Cold?  Sure.  Dangerous?  Only if you're lazy, or stupid, or a klutz. Basically you get together six divers, find a frozen body of water you are familiar with, cut a triangular hole in the ice (the sharp corners make it easy to leverage yourself out of the water), and go.  Two divers are tenders. Two are backup safety. Two are in the water.  Rotate positions until you've all had a dive.  Use of a dry suit is optional. I used one. I stayed warm.  Others did not. They froze.  We did have a camp stove going all day melting snow and making warm water to dump in the wet suits.  The divers also made plenty of their own warm water.  Come on, admit it.  If you've gotta go, the water is damn cold....did you really hold it until after the dive?  That's the one big disadvantage of a dry suit.

Excuse my little logos on the images. People have already started swiping images from this site and calling them their own.


Racine Quarry. That's me with the pick-axe, bent over. We were chopping the starter holes for the BAS (Big Ass Saw.)


Hole is done. Tent is set up.  The floor is wood pallets for insulation. Inside is a stove, heater and gear. Racine.


How the hell can he smile? It was a wind-chill of 5 below that day!!! Racine.


Getting the gear assembled for the dive. You may notice that the hole seems bigger. It is. The warmer water erodes the hole almost immediately.  The ice around the hole is brittle and gets thinner as the day progresses.  The cut-out?  Pushed under the ice - it's used to plug the hole. It'll freeze in place overnight.  Racine.


Same idea, different location. This is at Pearl Lake. No tent this time.  It was 45 degrees out!! The warmest ice dive I have ever made!!! Note: Some of these guys were from Atlanta. See the gym shoes? Yes, their feet froze.

 


Let's pose, shall we? Here's a clear shot of one of the lines we shovel in the snow.  Later we add arrow heads. These radiate out from the hole and point the way back. Pearl.



Look - It's the BAS! Find that at your local
hardware store!!!  A friend made this one
for our group in his metal shop at work. Pearl.
 

The ice is the coolest (well, literally, too) part of the dive!  The water is 39-42 degrees, the ice is obviously 32 degrees. Pearl.


This is what the cleared areas look like from
under the ice.  The arrows point the way
back to the hole.  Simple and effective! Pearl.


He's draining the air from his dry-suit via the arm valve.  Look - a roof! Pearl.

Sorry for Checking a leaky zipper between dives. The guy bending over was up from Atlanta. Notice the gym shoes and windbreaker over a T-shirt?  Yea, he was cold.

Gary from Illinois and Gary from Atlanta get ready to dive in.  You can really see the erosion around the hole - the triangle is rounding out.

Another good shot of the light paths cleared in the snow.
I got a little artsy with this shot.  Just look cool.

One of the many unusual formations toy can dine under the ice - you just have to look!
Clearing away the 1/2" to 1" of ice that forms around the plug overnight.

This tool is actually a thick ice chipper.
Self portrait.

Shot from under the ice. Not bad vis.
A look at one of the corners of the hole. You can see that the upper part is eroded to a stair like configuration..  Slippery as hell.  We usually toss some sand on the area to increase traction.