Sylvia

Ice Diving Lake Sylvia:

The Spacemen of Lake Wobegon

If you're going to swim in February in Minnesota you need a tool that can slice through 30+ inches of ice.

The Slice-O-Matic, We call him, Trinity.

 A triangular hole allow two men to stand on each side of the diver and lift him and his 70 ponds of gear out of the hole with ease and without falling in themselves.

 Time to get wet. You cut all the way around but don't cut through until the very end. A chainsaw is a slush pump.

  Pools open and the shack is placed to keep gear from freezing. This is nearing the end of the day. The yellow rope (marked in 25 foot increments) is going to a diver so we know how far they are out.

Spacemen

 Maybe an old Ox or Bison vertebra. It's not uncommon for these to be 1000+ years old. Under the silt/mud they would eventually fossilize just like any other old bone in the correct conditions. 

Easy day, Easy diving. 

LateIce

On the heals of the Tonka Ride, I'm trying to play catch up so this post is a day after the last.

A late season lake ice dive on Calhoun. 

This video [ areyouguyssknubadivin? ] is from my good buddy Hydro. It will take about 3 minutes but it's high speed and fun to watch. It's the usual crew, Trinity, Popo, Hydro, Scubafreek and me (arcFlash). Its an average day on the ice, this video compresses maybe an hour or two into 3 minutes. Please watch.

Again I find myself out on the ice with people on shore asking if we need help. They say silly things like , "Are you cold?" and all I can say is, "No, is your dog walking you?" My point being that we are jumping in and out of the water and laughing an carrying on like little kids. How could people misunderstand play and real world human drama. We are 200 feet from shore and making no effort to get off the ice. 

The ice hole is chopped and hand cut so it's a little rough on the edges. We make minimum effort.

Joe and I use my Otter sled (he he he, Otter) to float gear to and from shore. 

It has enough capacity that Hydro takes a ride while I stabilize the stern and giggle. Trinity pulls us to shore using the ice lines.

Beach head landing after the pull.

The ice is still 15 inches thick on this small lake. We are barely able to jump enough to break off a think chunk to use as an ice boat. It's rare that we can get an ice block that holds a person.

Left: I push the raft. Right: I can't explain that.

Hydro on his surf-boat.

I use dive fins so I can push the ice and have more control in the water. Hydro goes without fins and spends more time on the ice. We specialize in ice play. he he he.

There is so much ice slush that you can't see through it. After an hour of breaking ice it's all slush.

Trinity finds this bone on the last dive about 30 feet down. Last time he found something like this the University carbon dated it to 64,000 years ago and part of an extinct bison. I don't remember the details so don't quote me but it's close enough. I found a bottle that was laying on the bottom for over 100 years and it looked new and 200 year old shipwrecks are easy to find so a few thousand years isn't too difficult and part of the Time Machine that is scuba.

We go late into the year and play on the ice and find an old bone. Both indicate the end. The sun is too high for winter to last. The ice will melt like Frosty in the Greenhouse. The bone will only indicate that we are all doomed. Some of us leave behind evidence of our time on earth and others just a small pool of water that will dry up and be lost in time.

The winter wind will return after a short spell and bring Frosty back to life. Snow will once again pile up on the sands of time. Someday, someplace, someone will find evidence that our bones once played in the summer sun.

I'm sorry that's kind of dark but on that sober message; the end of the day/post is upon us. Live Well.

notICE

It's hard to pass up rotten ice diving. It's more fun to play in and on than dive under. This deep into the ice diving season I've seen about all the ice diving I care to but being creative with soft ice is fun.

My regular crew has been jumping ice every weekend since the lakes skinned over in December. I've made it out many times but I've had other distractions. I've been diving ice since 2003, I think, so with 10 seasons of ice and maybe 150 ice dives I don't mind missing a few here and there. 

The one thing I always make time for is Ice In and Ice Out. Last year it warmed so fast the ice pulled away from shore and was gone before the next weekend. 

This year is great. The ice is crap but it's not melting in the cold. I expect to go out next weekend and play on it again.

We cut the hole as usual but the ice is so poor it melts out and gets lumpy within an hour or so. We measure it at 16 inches but it can barely hold the weight of the gear sled. I estimate that at 400 pounds. The sled becomes a boat for 20 feet while we ferry it from shore to ice strong enough to hold the 400 odd pounds. It takes 3 guys with grimacing looks to push it up onto the better ice and return it to shore without swamping it.

It's an hour or so later and we are mostly just playing in the water and ice. We chop at the ice and it candles into long thin spears. I'll show a picture later but for now that's what's filling in most of the hole. You may be wondering what happened to my sunglasses. Well, it's a short story. I put my head under and the ice broke the frame and the lens popped out. One lens is still better than nothing so I make due.

Joe and I have a good time playing in the hole while Trinity and Popo try and get some serious diving done. Joe and I don't stop Popo so the yellow line is going to a diver while Terry tends and Robert is the rescue diver if needed. Sure we goof off a lot but we take the divers' needs seriously and if they throw my tank into the hole, I'd be after Popo in a minute or less with Robert and Terry tending and Joe backing me up.

Sometimes, everyone is in the hole and we are splashing around like children. That's not so bad. I've said it before but if you cut a hole in a frozen lake and you need to take turns playing in it, you have the best friends. 

 I can't get enough so I just hang out and Robert goes for a dive. PoPo reviews some maps for a new dive site and Joe just hangs out messing about with smashing chunks of ice.

Ok, about now you may wonder why I'm still sitting in the hole. It's weightless. Standing on the ice for hours is tiresome. The water is 36 degrees and the air about the same. So I don't get cold and weightless is better.

When ice melts it gets porous more than it gets thinner. When it freezes it gets thicker but melting it gets weaker but not much thinner. The below photo shows ice from below and how it's getting spongy. In winter this would be as smooth as glass but now it's cut deeply with holes.

Last bit is a video of what it's like to dive in and around this ice hole. The video is about 4:45 so its a little long but I cut as much out as I could. If you find something dull jump forward 20 seconds and something will happen. Enjoy and I'll put up a pot luck post soon that has some Arrowhead video and other good bits that don't have enough content to stand on their own.

We expect the ice to weaken and allow for a larger swimming pool to play with so you're going to get one more of these, but this is the last post on ice diving for the year that I expect. I have a bike ride Saturday and then more ice on Sunday so we'll see if either is worth a show and tell. 

I owe you pictures of candled ice. 

Good bye.

nICE Diving

Sorry this blog went stale for a few weeks. No whining but knee pain following my race kept me out of the Adventure Circuit  for two weeks. Work has been requiring more of my time as well as catch up housework. Before the AH I was riding all the time and lost the balance between work/play/chores so 3 weeks to correct that and rehab the knee.

I've been diving with the same crew for a few years because lets be honest there are only so many people that want to swim under the ice, year after year after year...

This post is going to wander a bit just to bridge the better pictures from the last year because you can only generate so much story from swimming. Even if it's under water, under ice. I assure you its a blast hanging out with friends and diving all day but the Show&Tell is as weak as tax reform.

We go to Mille Lacs last weekend, spend a night at a hotel in Wahkon, MN and then dive again Sunday.
Below is 30 inches of ice that was removed to make room for a diver to enter. My team pushes the block down under the ice because it's hundreds of pound but they can be removed if you want to put in the effort.

 Once the hole is open we but a portable ice fishing shack over it mostly to hide from the wind and blowing snow but we heat it none the less. The darkness also allows us to see about 15 feet down to the rocks on the bottom. Gear doesn't freeze once it's heated to the high 40 or 50's. We heat water on Turkey Cookers and put it in coolers so we can dip anything that's frozen or cold into the hot water. That being fingers or gear.

We dive in winter because it's the best season. The algae dies and without boats and waves stirring up the bottom visibility is as good as it's ever going to get. We don't need to portage gear to the shore or load a small boat or swim from shore through weeds so thick you could bail hay. We drive to the site, cut a hole and go directly to the prize, anchors.

Anchors don't have any value but it's something to do and it's easy to see who is winning. Anything worth bringing back to the hole gets some credit unless we throw it back in once the divers leaves the hole. <he he he>

We eat well but the nutritional content is questionable. Sushi, Crab, Amber Jack, Burgers, Brats, and Pringles. 

Lets not get too technical about the order of events. We're not drinking and diving but we're not saints.

Below is a fun day a few weeks back when I win the "How small of a hole can you fit in!" Terry holds the ice saw and I get into a hole so small I exhale to pass the middle ribs.

Nate values equilateral triangles and roomy at that. He's a very good diver but not lean as a crab leg like me.

You're on a lake with little shelter and less carpet so you change into dive gear when and where you need to.

Every dive site is different and we change sites 3 or more time a day. It takes experience to not lose anything and keep your gear in a single spot. To lose a $300 dive computer the size of a large watch sucks.

Gear is a learning experience as well. Terry had US Mil Surplus crampons. They got the job done!

 

Popo (nickname) had some bad luck with an ice shack. he he he.... You go PO, 

"Don't take no crap from no shack."

This is gear for 2 divers and it's maybe 300 pounds. It means nothing to pull it 1/2 mile to the first site and then over a mile to the car at the end of the day.

We jumped Lake Minnetonka and by chance cut the hole directly above a pickup truck that got lost to the lake. Its old and blue but we figure it was some young driver that didn't know any better.

This is an inside joke, the hat is my buddy Terry.

We make a little crustacean tank for no reason at all. I wish I could explain but it's not my idea.

 So long as we're talking about nature and Crayfish lets look at something I find fascinating. Bubbles.

The ice hole is cut through 30 inches of ice and exposes an interesting layer of bubbles. I've dropped into ice this thick many times and never seen this pattern.

I can't explain how this happened but my guess is the arctic clipper and the -20 temps put ice on so fast it trapped gasses that otherwise would have escaped.

Time in the shack getting geared up also looks like getting out. Terry is getting out. He takes his fins off last so this must be getting out. If he was getting in, he'd be pulling on the fin strap.

Nate is just up for a status report. Think of it as late breaking news.  All is good or a Bob Marley is playing the bottom of Milli Lacs.

 We score a few anchors and have a great time diving with our buddies from Isanti County. John is getting his trophy for winning the last Anchor Challenge by getting 50 anchors in a season, I get 3rd at 40 and miss catching Nate at 41 for 2nd place.

We have been called the G-Men. The G stands for Gilligan's. It wasn't meant to be a complement but we made it one. Life is what you make it and the G-MEN rule the ice with superhero flare. 

and on that, We are the G-MEN!