Ice block while diving

[Deep Thought]

Pushing the Ice Blocks Under for Ice Diving has a long history of successful diving.  It was only 30 years ago when I trained in Ice Diving that it was popular with many stores in the twin cities to cut triangle shaped holes and push the ice below.  There were several reasons that this was popular, but the main reason I recall had to do with cutting ice by hand with an old time ice saw... We cut Triangle shaped ice holes as there were less sides, and the angles were acute to allow divers to back into for easy exit.  Since we did not cut the block into pieces that were easily managed, we pushed it under. 

Chainsaws have made short work of ice cutting and today it is very uncommon to see an old time ice saw in use, or pushing ice under.

I have photographs of Jack The Frogman ice diving in the mid 50's and at that time it was not totally established to have a lifeline, infact divers have related stories to me where they simply placed the divers flag or a marker down into the ice hole to help them see the exit!

Pushing the block under has some skill, but no more than driving on winter roads...oh - there were how many accidents today??? some people can drive on ice, some people can dive under the ice with a block safely....

I admit there are challenges to pushing the block away from the hole, once done it freezes to the sheet below - if pushed a few yards away does not entangle the line, and in all the years of diving with ice under or pulling out, there was only one time a loud mouth diver asked to push the triangle back into the hole - yes skill is required - this braggart was the only one to have the ice block slip back up into the hole.  So we pushed it out of the way, and asked another diver to simply swim the line around the block and exit with a loop around the block - when diver is out of the water, pull rope in and the block pops into place - done! 

Now if it were horror stories of ice diving techniques, I can tell tales of divers who use ungodly lengths of line to explore.  These people have obviously never had to practice a lost diver drill underwater, or they may realize just how impossible it would be to search such a large area... all it would take is one free flow and the tender would never know there was an problem, yet these people have not had an issue I am aware of???

So there are many ways to skin cats, and what one person may assume as reasonable behavior can be viewed by others as outrageous.  And getting away with something is not proof alone, just as training will not always guarantee reasonable behavior.  However the major training agencies have endorsed standards that are conservative and instructors generally have experience that is valuable.

I hope it is a busy season for diving, if this weather holds there will be plenty of ice. Talk is good, but nothing beats getting out and ice diving! 

Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment