| Just got back from Vermont. They have had as crappy a winter as we have here (crappy meaning, not blisteringly cold and filled with snow and ice), and this is the first time they've been able to ice dive all winter. I've been jonesing hard for some ice, so as soon as I was relieved of paternal duties I headed up in my camper bus, arriving about 1 am. The windy drive up was somewhat unpleasant in a 6' 11" slab-sided vehicle, as I kept getting pushed around - I never left my lane, but in a blink I could go from one side of it to the other. Its funny to see how other cars treat you, its kind of like you're the raving crazy dude on the subway and they just want to get the hell away from you as quickly as possible without making eye/vehicular contact. So, my upper body got a workout holding steady through the windy passages, my adrenaline glands got a workout when I would seemingly teleport to new and terrifying locations, and my vocabulary got to practice its germanic derivatives in anatomically impossible ways. It was still worth it though to drive in to Colchester at 1 am, draw the curtains, pull out the bed, bust out the big fluffy -25 down bag, and be blowing zzz's in ten minutes flat.
Sunday morning I met up with the crew at Victory Sports, in whose driveway I had slept, and behind whose dumpster I had...well never mind (it took a lot of green tea to drive up through the night.) First came the enormous sorting of equipment. Chain saw, hand saw, ropes, ice screws, thermoses full of water, rubber mats, etc etc, enough to fill a van and short-bed pickup truck, not including our personal gear. The sun was playing hide and seek in the clouds, the wind wasn't too bad, and the temps had risen from around zero overnight to somewhere in the 20's. On a typical winter the ice is more than 20" thick, but as it was only 8" we hauled our stuff out on sleds from a nearby point. The day before a car and a snowmobile had fulfilled their darwinian duty by taking their occupants through the ice, which was pretty persuasive to us but apparently not to the schmuckos still doing donuts, oblivious to the booming crunching sounds as they drove by.
The nice thing about thinner ice is it so much easier to cut. Some of us improved the light penetration by shoveling the snowy patches clear, while the others cut the hole and sank ice screws for our lines. After 40 minutes tops we were in business, and the first diver did a giant stride into the hole in her doubles. Huh? She is definitely made of sterner stuff than me carrying that weight. More agile stuff too, its a lock I'd face plant and mess up the viz with all that dramatic head-wound bleeding. With six of us we were able to cycle in and out pretty quickly, and over the course of three dives I got an hour of bottom time. In between we had the brilliant luxury of a pop-up ice fishing tent. Truly a toasty godsend. It was rather odd to be inside, as it was furnished with a propane heater and a stool, and was just tall enough to stand in comfortably, with tiny square windows at waist height. Probably latent Catholic guilt, but I kept feeling like I was in a confessional, and should either start making stuff up (the early years) or leaving stuff out (the later years) for Father Moody.
Speaking of the almighty, I did invoke his name, and very loudly at that. Without warning there was a sound like a clap of thunder, and a forked-lightning crack ran 100' across the ice to our hole. At least I managed to call out in my cool collected Johnny Cash baritone, and any reports to the contrary are not to trusted. There was no ice sag, never any danger, but with all the moaning/cracking/popping sounds from the ice I may have cardiac arrhythmia and a facial tic for a while.
I brought my camera all ready for wide angle, but unfortunately the viz was pretty kicked up from the recent rains. I did learn from last year, when my lens fogged terribly, and I nearly flooded it on dive two from ice expansion in the o-ring groove. Therefore I packed it the night before and left it in my chilly van, and only took it for one dive. I started underwater photography specifically so I could show people how amazing the ice is, but sadly my enthusiasm still far outstrips my abilities. I cracked off a few bizarre pics of the snow from below, more Rorschach Test than anything, that I'll post to the photo gallery. Does anyone else see Pegasus? How about Cerberus? Seriously? I've been reading the Iliad, and suspect I'm unhinged by all the hard-core Greek mythology.
Fortunately there were no lampreys, as apparently they are becoming even more horrific than you would assume a beady-eyed suction-mouthed thousand-toothed bloodsucking eel already is. According to Betsy of the Doubles she had three latch onto her last summer, including one that bit her clean through her dry suit. Now, I can guarantee you, had I came out with one of those mofos attached to me, I would have run shrieking across the ice like daffy duck until one of the drag-racing nitwits mowed me down. Good thing they stayed absent, there is just no good way to eulogize that.
Several folks found a hibernating turtle hanging out on a ledge, but as always I crawled around like a spider upside down on the ice, just grooving on it. My obligatory inverted water skiing was nearly made more interesting by a pressure ridge in my path, but no fins trapped-no foul, and the ice block even obliged us by not freezing on. Including breakdown, chit-chat, and some post-diving nachos I was home by 9pm, wired on heady mix of all-the-green-tea-in-China syndrome and some unexpectedly cool stuff I sussed out of the ipod.
If there is good ice in'shallah I'll be back up there next weekend, so if anyone is interested come along and take the class. I promise, with the best of intentions at least, not to laugh if you get a lamprey on your butt. |
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