Ice-Diving

in the Swiss “Klöntalersee”

Before you finally can enjoy the exciting adventure underneath the ICE you need to carefully prepare the trip. Quite stupid when you realize at the dive site that you forgot your chainsaw or any safety stuff at home…

The most important thing when ice diving:

Safety !

40-50 cm of thick ice must be cut out. The best is a triangular hole and a second emergency hole on the perimeter. In addition, clean the ice from snow in a radial pattern and mark the maximum radius the same way as well. The whole arrangement is a huge drudgery until everything including diving equipment is ready. Three hours of sweating go by easily.

Yes, and then it gets really cold. The Dive-Buddies are connected to each other and secured from the outside. A fantastic underwater world awaits them. Depending on your constitution, a dive may last up to 40 minutes.

And then again out of the wet and fast freezing clothes. Store the equipment in a “warm” place if available, for the next dive. Once you get out of the water everything is freezing immediately and it may happen that you zippers are not working anymore. More delicate: your regulators may freeze as well…