Switching Divers Under the Ice.

[DetectorGuy]

This is probably going to get me arrested by the Dive Police... But this website needs some controversy to wake it up. Nate and I started this Honey Badger Dive Team a few years ago with the premise that we just don't care. It's not that we don't care about anything... but at times we are unconventional, anti establishment, and most times thinking outside the box. We have received formal training from several certifying agencies, and have put that training to use often. We have also adopted unorthodox skill sets used by different people, in different situations.
We routinely go ice diving with just the two of us. We have practiced the disconnected diver drills with just the two of us. We have practiced in-water re-compression. We recently had a third ice diver with us & did something that we haven't tried before. We switched divers while under the ice sheet. This is not a hard task in 40' visibility, but is frowned upon by most dive agencies. I would say it is not a safe (or smart) way to do things, but we may have a need to do this in the future, and I am glad we tried it. Again I am not condoning this as a 'best practice' but wanted to share a video of it anyway...

[freedivernd]

I often wonder about all the times I just use a plastic backplate and no bc.. in the rivers just dealing with currrent and shallows.. and spearfishing.. just wanting the ease. I've come to really dislike the bc.

[Hydro]

meh, if you can see the hole and you have a pony or can see another diver within 20 feet id say the risk is pretty low... if you were switching divers and didn't have a pony with 3 feet of vis out of sight of the hole, id say that is something id wouldn't be comfortable with for just screwing around.

with the way we usually ice dive, pushing the block under the ice and just over to the side, its quite important to have surface people in-case the block does go back into the hole... most of the time the diver can remove it, but not fast... ive knocked it back into the hole before, but didnt even give it a second thought as i swam away... knowing the surface can clear it when needed.

i go with a 15 second rule as thats the length of time i can knowingly hold my breath if im starting at my max heart rate under max physical exertion.

ill throw this out there: solo ice diving on a non-penetrable wreck using a cave reel with 75 feet of vis.... if the hole is right above the wreck say the Hercules.

or partial ice covered diving (with defined ice areas) with no lines in weeds and low vis?

[Shooter]

It wasn't planned, I just wanted to get some good footage of the diver coming back to the hole. We did have a third diver with us. I really liked seeing shots from all 4 camera angles! Way cool, nice job putting it together John!

I would recommend any diver shooting video with a GoPro, learn the 2.0 editing software. It makes putting COOL dive videos together A LOT easier! Thanks again Aquaventure!

[Terry]

All of us must determine our own level of comfort with the "risks" as to where we "draw the line" under the ice, based on experience/abilities, training, equipment, crew, existing conditions, etc. I've been thru a few icing certs. myself, but have left some of the class's ideas behind, eg, sand around the hole, nylon ropes, colored tape on the ropes (to indicate distance out), confusing numbers of pulls to indicate even more confusing situations, as dumb ideas come up with by people who had spent more time thinking about icing, then actually icing. I think its fair to state that each of us, (Nate, John, Steve, Joe, Popo, Robert, and myself) have more ice dives, (time under the ice), then many of Minnesota's icing instructors, certainly many of them combined. Along with that experience comes a comfort level as to how much risk is being assumed on any individual dive. A few times this season I was 400' out from the hole, some divers would not be comfortable with that distance, and that's understandable.
I don't see much of a concern with Nate and John switching divers under the ice as long as Art or someone is still on the surface. I have iced a few times with just two divers (just two people) on the ice and would not recommend leaving "no one" on the surface, in anything other then an emergency situation, especially without a shack. This is partially due to differences in our setups, we submerge our block, Nate and John pull theirs. If the block were to pop back into the hole without surface support, (on top of the existing emergency) it would make survival MUCH more difficult. There are quite a few "what if's" with no one on the surface, one could come up with.
In all of my icing classes we ALWAYS had a fully suited (and at the ready) safety diver, and safety tender, as we did for our regular ice dives with the Argonautes under the direction of Jean Francious Aubineau (for some of you, a dive shop on University Ave back in the 70's and 80's where I did my master's class) Today we do not utilize a safety diver/tender with my group, nor do Nate and John, for it requires an absolute min. of 4 people. It made me wonder, (while I was safety diver, partially because you had little to do other then sit, think, and get cold. Icing's an overhead enviorment,
much like
wreck or cave diving, but you don't have a safety diver and tender for wrecks or caves, sure the water is cold adding another concern, over frozen regs. and fingers, but still no safety divers or tenders. We dive alone, as do Nate and John, when its just the two of them. If there was a concern with a newer diver we just went with them. I've got 156 jumps just in the last 5 seasons alone, then add in Steve's, Joe's, Popo's, Robert's, Jason's, and Scottie's, jumps and we've not yet needed a safety diver/tender yet even once, maybe more to add to the list. Trinity

[Rookie]

[quote='Terry' pid='40281' dateline='1397610479']
All of us must determine our own level of comfort with the "risks" as to where we "draw the line" under the ice, based on experience/abilities, training, equipment, crew, existing conditions, etc. I've been thru a few icing certs. myself, but have left some of the class's ideas behind, eg, sand around the hole, nylon ropes, colored tape on the ropes (to indicate distance out), confusing numbers of pulls to indicate even more confusing situations, as dumb ideas come up with by people who had spent more time thinking about icing, then actually icing. I think its fair to state that each of us, (Nate, John, Steve, Joe, Popo, Robert, and myself) have more ice dives, (time under the ice), then many of Minnesota's icing instructors, certainly many of them combined. Along with that experience comes a comfort level as to how much risk is being assumed on any individual dive. A few times this season I was 400' out from the hole, some divers would not be comfortable with that distance, and that's understandable.
I don't see much of a concern with Nate and John switching divers under the ice as long as Art or someone is still on the surface. I have iced a few times with just two divers (just two people) on the ice and would not recommend leaving "no one" on the surface, in anything other then an emergency situation, especially without a shack. This is partially due to differences in our setups, we submerge our block, Nate and John pull theirs. If the block were to pop back into the hole without surface support, (on top of the existing emergency) it would make survival MUCH more difficult.
In all of my icing classes we ALWAYS had a fully suited (and at the ready) safety diver, and safety tender, as we did for our regular ice dives with the Argonautes under the direction of Jean Francious Aubineau (for some of you, a dive shop on University Ave back in the 70's and 80's where I did my master's class) Today we do not utilize a safety diver/tender with my group, nor do Nate and John, for it requires an absolute min. of 4 people. One thing made me wonder, (while I was safety diver, partially because you had little to do other then sit and get cold).... Ice diving is an overhead enviornment, much like penetration wreck or cave diving, but you don't have a safety diver and tender for wrecks or caves, sure the water is cold adding another concern, over frozen regs. and fingers, but still no safety divers or tenders.
[/quote]

[Rookie]

OK, so I am the new guy on the block! Yes, I have 30 ice dives for the season! Not a lot compared to those that I dive with, but still a pretty good record! Yes, I have the required certifications and such! I guess where I am coming from is that sometimes shit works! and sometimes shit gets all screwed up really fast! What you and your partner do is totally between you and your comfort level! Unfortunately when people make posts such as this one, person's who maybe are not as qualified as you guys are get it in to their heads that this is cool and maybe they should try it too! Hell, It would look great on youtube! Right! Unfortunately in my 27 years of Law Enforcement and responding to emergencies on pretty much a daily basis, I can tell you that when things go to shit it happens really fast and of course it was never planned for the outcome to present itself the way it did-I have attended too many funerals in my career! I guess what i am really saying is if you are going to be reckless/careless then do it, just don't post it and put ideas into other persons heads! I have never met you guys but I am sure you are very competent divers and I personally would look forward to doing a jump with you guys! So please do not take this personal, just understand where I am coming from and the message that I am trying to convey! So, here is to a lifetime of safe jumps, cheers, Scotty

[DetectorGuy]

Hi Scott, I appreciate the comments, and I was kind of anticipating some annimosity when I posted it. I was kidding when I expected to be arrested by the Dive Police, but had no clue that a police officer is now one of the G-men.
Welcome to the board and look forward to more banter.

[DetectorGuy]

I haven't been out to 400' under the ice yet... But I have been 300' out one time. We were doing a disconnected diver drill (something that any ice diver worth his salt should do once in a while to keep the skills honed). The diver that was pretending to be disconnected was using the 125' rope and was out there somewhere to the South, an unknown distance from the hole. We did have 4 people that day so one designated tender, one safety diver, one diver pretending to be lost, and one diver to go out on the longer rope looking for the 'lost' diver. The longer safety rope we had was a 300 footer and the tender had not practiced this disconnected diver drill before. I attached to the 300' rope and had the tender check my connection. I slipped in the hole and swam due East using my compass, expecting the tender to stop me 25' beyond the length of the shorter rope so I could start swimming clockwise with the rope tight in hopes that the disconnected diver would be waiting at the surface like he was trained to do. I swam as fast as I could waiting for the rope to tighten and it seemed to take forever. Finally the rope tightened and I started the radius to my right. went up to the surface and swam the radius keeping the rope as tight as I could to 'catch' the disconnected diver. I was swimming this radius forever, and then I felt the four tugs telling me the missing diver just grabbed my safety rope. The missing diver not only tugged 4 times in my direction, but also toward the tender who started to pull us both to the hole.
One of the lessons that we learned from this is that I should have communicated to the tender (prior to me jumping in) that he should have stopped me at 150' (25' past the length of the lost divers rope).
The second lesson we learned is when it comes to dive ropes, there should be a primary safety rope at what ever length, and a emergency (or secondary rope) that is 25' longer than the primary rope to avoid wasting time by going so much farther than is needed (the circumfrence of a 300' radius is 1885').
The third lesson I learned is that even though it was a drill, my SAC rate went in the toilet when the adrennalin kicked in. I started the drill with 3,000 psi and ended with under 1,000 psi.
The fourth lesson I learned was when I was out at 300' from the hole (if I was the one to become disconnected) there is no one coming to get me, and I should just try to enjoy the rest of my last dive.
The Fifth lesson we learned is that each dive should be a training dive, and never get to the point where we think we know everything there is to know about diving.

[Hydro]

We had better luck calculating a lost diver location from the surface and cutting a hole. All this assumes the failure is at the rope connecting to the diver and the diver immediately stops within a dive rope radius.... we have the going plan that if something happened where a backup diver was slow or unsuccessful we start cutting holes reguardless. Of course that requires people in the surface....