We arrived at Union Lake to go for a dive this morning, and we found that it was frozen over.
This was not going to stop Brando, Keith and myself from diving and it became the first ice dive of this winter season. Dave came along to do some surface photography and he acted as our surface support.
There was a group of divers that were getting in the water as we were suiting up.
Anybody want to guess from the picture what they're doing that is pretty unsafe for an overhead dive?
So we waited for them to get out, then Keith attached our reel to the posts and then we headed in:
We headed under the ice, tying off the reel as we went. It's always a bit of an eerie feeling once you know that the ice is between you and the surface and you can't just go to the surface if anything goes wrong, you have to fix it where you are.
Unfortunately, I flooded my camera case. Imagine my surprise when at 20 feet I unclipped it to take a picture and saw the camera was busy swimming inside the case. Scratch one Canon SD1000 camera.
Thus I have no underwater pictures of my own, but Brandon was willing to share his, and Dave shared some surface pics.
After noticing the camera flood, on our way toward the speedboat, we saw this huge gar.
It wasn't bothered by our being there and slowly swam along. Big fish with lots of sharp teeth but a rather pleasant disposition. I think it said its name was Teri...
We then reached and swam around the speedboat, noticing all the fish tucked away in various areas nooks and crannies.
After swimming around for a bit in the 35 degree water we decided to head back and follow the lines back to the hole in the ice and surface.
Total dive time: 27 minutes. Water temperature: 35 degrees. Air consumption: 700 psi used. Heading under the ice with friends and fellow divers - priceless.
A very cool dive and quite a way to spend a December Sunday morning. My last dive of 2012.
5 comments:
Teri the Gar? I'm old enough to see what you did there.
Now, which one of you is Herr Doctor?
Hey, Terri Garr was hot once. Not Audrey Hepburn hot, or Farrah Fawcett hot, but hot. (And any of you kids who don't know who those women are, get off my lawn!)
So what did they do that's unsafe? Is it really unsafe, or just something that you would not do but I would?
Happy New Year, fella!
Graybeard: Glad someone can appreciate it. I'd say Brandon is Herr Doktor - the man is a wizard in the water.
ML: Take a look at their gear configuration, and give it a guess.
They also didn't tie their line in properly (but at least they're using a line) but that's something you won't pickup from the photograph.
What? Just because they're on singles? I thought that's where you might have been going. Now we're back to "stuff that I do". You trying to live forever or something?
Yep you got it. Single tanks under the ice doesn't leave a lot of room for failure.
That's being just one regulator away from trying to grow gills fast.
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