Ice diving is the Holy Grail of diving.
If you have not been ice diving then what do you know about diving.
One day we want to change that, SOMETHING to know about ice diving, and we stand over the ice break. White ice and black water can be seen. It seems that we will plunge into a dark gloomy world that can swallow us and, unfortunately, sometimes some do not want to give up.
I remember once we were ice diving at the Black Pond below Rysy. The gap was not a hole in the ice but a two-meter vertical tunnel descending toward the water like a pristine transparent black diamond.
I remember once we were ice diving on the Czorsztyn Lagoon. The gap was not a hole in the ice but a frame surrounding water with the clarity of a shoe-muddled puddle.
I remember once we were ice diving in the Mazury region. The icebreak wasn’t an icebreak, just an excuse to gather at the lake, have a barbecue and enjoy sausages with a team of supporting firefighters from the TSO, who suddenly buzzed their phones and disappeared rushing to help someone.
Ice diving is the quintessential adventure. As you know adventure is known by the fact that as we experience it we dream of a glass of mulled wine in front of the fireplace and as we sit with a glass of wine in front of the fireplace we dream of adventure.
Preparation of ice diving
Ice diving itself is not particularly difficult. We enter the air gap and dive in. The difficult part is to get back to that gap for sure. At the core of all training, procedures, and dive management is this basic goal. Return.
The rest is simple. We go in, we dip, we swim where we want.
Now that we’ve covered the easy part, let’s move on to the hard part.
A typical ice dive goes as follows. A pair of divers ties themselves with decent knots to the end of a rather thick rope, this rope is fixed on the surface of the ice or on a nearby shore and is additionally held by a belayer. In addition, a rope twice as long is prepared on the surface for rescue divers, whose task is to find divers from the basic team who may have been lost or unable to return for some reason. In a nutshell, it looks like this.
The details are a little more complicated, but only a little. A typical diving group is two divers. In addition to their diving gear, they are wearing the chest portion of a climbing harness, or if the harnesses of their gear are of fixed webbing with metal derring-do, that will do as well. One of the divers is tied at the end of a rope to a harness or metal derringer using a figure-eight knot. The second diver is tied “run-on” so that he can change the length of the rope between himself and his partner underwater using a half-lock or a dering wrap three times. A semi-bolt works better but a dering or bolt-on carbine must be large enough. If the knot did not want to jump to both sides, wraps are better.
That is, at the end of the belay rope is tied to a pair of divers so that:
- They certainly won’t unwind accidentally underwater.
- They can adjust the length of the rope and thus the distance between them.
Rope – this is a decent, cored and floating rope 8 mm thick. Such thickness is very reliable and yet binds quite easily. Core so that it does not rub easily on the edge of the ice, and floating because if it is going to catch on something, it is better if it catches under the ice – that is, near the surface (shallow), not near the bottom (deep).
The rope is 30 meters long plus a few meters for tying divers and attaching on the surface. Why 30 meters? From the point of view of getting into a place where you can’t immediately surface (as part of recreational diving after all) there is a certain standard that has been developed. You should not swim away further than the 40 meters resulting from adding depth and distance. That is, at 30 meters deep you can go “under the ceiling” 10 meters, at 10 meters deep you can go “under the ceiling” 30 meters and at one meter you can go 39 meters. When ice diving, the recommended 30 meters of line length is reasonable and slightly conservative.
We tie the rope on the surface to something secure. Preferably to a thick tree. And if there isn’t? Well, there are several options. We make two holes in the ice at a distance of 50 cm and pass the rope into the water through the first hole, pull it out through the second and tie it off. Alternatively, we screw in an ice screw (mountaineering) and use a figure-eight knot to tie the rope to the screw screw screwed into the ice. Someone will ask “and where do we get the screw?”. Screws we always have, and several, because divers need them under the ice for self-insurance. So one more screw to attach the belay rope will also be found. The rope, of course, from the beginning to the end of the dive is held on the surface by a belayer. That is, the person who issues and selects the rope and communicates with the group underwater by signals. Various methods of signaling can be established but simplicity works best:
- One jerk – all OK. (Answer – one jerk – all OK.)
- Many jerks – all not OK. – CHOOSE ROPE.
Ice diving
So the underwater group begins the dive properly belayed and equipped. Basic equipment includes a reel and ice screw, as well as a snorkel.
Why the reel and screw? In theory, if divers get lost because the rope breaks, they screw the bolt from the bottom into the ice, attach the line from the reel, swim off in any direction 50 meters and circle back and find the break by hooking the line to the vertical line flying from the break to the bottom. That’s in theory. And in practice? In practice, as the rope is tied and held as we described, theory remains theory, and very well.
Well, and why a pipe? If you can’t find an icebreak, use an ice screw to drill three holes in the ice close together. We connect them by scooping out the remaining ice with a large diving knife. Extend the pipe through the ice (works up to 15 cm thick ice) and breathe through the pipe while waiting for help.
Now we are going underwater. In general, when you are on the rope, you should avoid situations where the rope catches on something or gets wrapped up. Therefore, we rather try to avoid swimming in curves. That is, we are sailing to some destination. Then we return to the area of the break and swim to our next destination. Ice diving has the advantage that an ice break can almost always be cut anywhere in a body of water. That is, if we want to view a particular dive site we can make a break above it and we don’t have to swim far.
Accidents in ice diving
Finally, let’s discuss what causes possible accidents underwater. Of course, divers point out how important it is to have duplicate equipment, two cylinders and dual automatics. This is, of course, an additional safety factor, but the most important safety factor is a decent, thick 30-meter rope, a belay on the surface and a “rescue” diver on site. Simply put, practice shows that accidents do not happen during such prepared dives, where a pair of divers using typical recreational equipment (one cylinder plus an automatic with an octopus) is tied to a thick rope, held by a belayer on the surface and attached additionally on the surface.
Accidents happen to poorly belayed divers despite the fact that they had fully duplicated equipment.
What is the most dangerous thing about ice diving?
The most dangerous is diving without any belay. Why do divers sometimes make such an imprudent decision as going under the ice without a belay? It is possible to see when analyzing ice accidents, several factors contributing to this lack of prudence. Such imprudent decisions happen to divers who know the body of water well. They think they will always hit back and humans sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes the ice seems thin especially at the beginning or end of winter or near the shore the ice is melted and there is a large gap between the ice and the shore. Divers estimate that they can surface at any point or always manage to swim to a gap anywhere near the shore. However, sometimes it doesn’t work out.
Such reckless diving all too often ends badly so remember:
- Good Underwater Course.
- Careful dive preparation.
- Adherence to procedures.
