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Gentlemen, Looks like this ice-diving thread is becoming a free-flowing thread ;-) Anyway, In my experience it is VITAL that any diver who proceeds on a dive under the ice, knows how to react in the case of a freeflowing regulator, and is either able to close this valve himself, and do so very quickly!, or has a buddy who knows exactly what first stage you are breathing on, and can close it for you. Needless to say, DIR divers are at an advantage here, because their equipment is configured in exactly the same way, so no guessing which first stage to close! These skills can be practised in the pool or in shallow diving conditions, as Ingemar stated. Also breathing from a freeflowing reg is possible, but should be a last resort since your bottle will empty itself rather quickly, and remember, you are in an overhead environment! A good buddy is in such a case invaluable!! JSUW@AO*.co* has got another good point: "Under the right (wrong?) conditions ANY regulator will free flow. It is important in colder air temperatures to avoid breathing off of the regulator out of the water, so that it doesn't ice up prior to the dive." It is very important that you don't breathe, or try out your inflator, or drysuit inflator, out in the air. Only when you are immersed can you do these tests. This is a habit most divers have to break, because most will try out their regs and inflators BEFORE entering the water. Don't do this when you go ice-diving, or do it in a heated environment (if you have the luxury of a heated kitting up room) Otherwise the first crystals will be formed before the dive. Why? Because when there is ice on the water, you can bet that the air temperature is even colder than the waters temp. So the risk of the forming of ice crystals even when little air is passing through the first stage is higher in the air than in the water, even directly under the ice. It is also important that the RMV of the diver during the dive is kept as low as possible. Thats why we don't take beginners or known hoovers on an ice dive. We try to keep the exertion to a minimum and avoid places with strong currents. Also, when inflating the (obligatory, although I've known people who go icediving with a wet suit - they usually do only ONE icedive, afterwards, they either quit or buy a drysuit ;-) ) drysuit or BC, work in short bursts, and preferably not while breathing from the same first stage. All little things that make a lot of difference under the ice. just my 2p rgrds Adri Haine On another topic: has anyone noticed to what lengths the Wak two team is going in explaining their exaggerated bottom times (see the january 6 update). Now they say they dropped their mapper and were proceeding while mapping manually. Why have a XXXXX$ mapper and then not use it? Well, just a thought or two from an innocent bystander ;-) --- "The fair breeze blew, the foam flew, the furrow followed free We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea" Samuel Taylor Coleridge __________________________________________________________________ Get your own free England E-mail address at http://www.england.com -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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