Swim Lessons 1-23-09 & 1-24-09

[DetectorGuy]

I labeled this dive report swim lessons, but it is basically a dive report that was a multitask dive. The original dive was to be a search pattern training dive while looking for a large anchor. We did not find the anchor in question but Shooter found a different one along with some other neat trinkets. I am not sure if he has any photos of the porthole he found, but that was really cool. The air temp on 1-23-09 was a high of 16 with winds gusting to 30 MPH. Shooter had to plow a new road across the lake. Arts shelter worked extremely well with Shooters dive camper blocking some of the wind. We need to post some pics of this camper, It looks like a scuba tank on steroids. Logistically this dive site was a challenge with the wind and the free flows. I was able to get in 3 dives toward my ice certification on this day. Divers on this day were: Art, Shooter, Brian, Scott, and myself.

Art, Shooter, Brian, and I stayed in a cabin at Hunters Point resort for two nights. It reminded me of deer camp but in a cool and different way. Shooter brought up about 10 pounds of the best tasting fish I have EVER eaten! We ate very well.  ;D

The second dive site was to recover a wedding ring about 4 miles out from Macs Twin Bay Resort. On 1-24-09 the temps had dropped dramatically but most of the wind had died down. We woke up to 20 degrees below zero. We drove to the second site named "My Precious" (because of the ring) and started to cut the hole. The pressure of the snow had depressed the ice enough to flood the entire area with 4" of water coming through the hole. We abandon this hole and cut another about 60 feet from the first and made a snow dam to contain the water. The water made it so that we could not set up a shelter. We used Shooters camper for a changing & gearing up area. We would go as fast as we could going from the camper to the hole to help eliminate the freeze up. Shooter went in first and recovered the ring right away. it was in about 23 feet of water. Art, Shooter, Brian, & I all got to dive at this site and Brian and I completed our ice dive certification.

I learned a lot from Art and Shooter on these two days. The swim lessons that I was after (ice Certification), turned out to be lessons in worst case scenarios. Thank you again for encouraging me to keep improving my dive skills through training.

[Shooter]

Congratulations on your certification! I will dive with you anytime, anywhere. When it comes to this type of diving, you definately gotta want it. There was a lot of improvising, adapting, and overcoming. Even though we did not recover the anchor, I am certain that it was not within our 100+ ft. search radius.

Here is the video of "The Quest for the Ring"



I will post pics at work later..... 8)

[Shooter]

more pics

[billatlake]

I had to look at your pic's a second time.

It takes a special group to ice dive in conditions like that.

Even more special to put up a dive flag 8)