You are toasting your toes in front of an open fire or snuggled under the duvet. The last thing on your mind is diving, and if it was on your mind it would be thoughts of the coming spring or your next winter sunshine tropical trip. But if it is cold enough to give a good freeze to ponds, rivers and lakes, some maniac goes and spoils it all by calling for an ice dive.
The first problem with ice diving is finding enough divers to even make it possible. You don't just need a buddy. You need a tender for the rope and standby divers in case of emergency. All the usual excuses came out, even our club president was washing his hair. I tried the line that this was a rare opportunity not to be missed. I said they would regret it if they didn't have a go.
Eventually the promise that we would be finished in time for lunch in a nice warm pub and that it would be a good social event had the desired effect. A team of divers was assembled and off we went to the local mill pond.
Thick enough to walk on. Barely larger than a swimming pool and not as deep, the mill pond is not the sort of location one would normally choose to dive. But it is the frozen surface which makes ice diving a unique experience, the water depth is irrelevant.
As a safety measure, we all suit up before cutting a hole. Out come those traditional items of diving equipment, the lump hammer and chisel. I have heard that more sophisticated ice divers in Canada use chain saws, but a chain saw would not be much use on a wreck. Cutting a hole just big enough to fit a diver is a good warm up exercise.
Even wrapped up with an extra set of thermals under our dry suits and thick winter gloves the water is bitterly cold.
Trapped under the ice, our exhaust bubbles race in all directions. Eventually they settle down to form wafer thin pockets of air. Hitting the ice with a fist sends them racing again.
We explore the underside of the ice as our tender pays out more rope. The smooth surface is occasionally broken by "floating" branches. The clear ice acts as a diving mask to the world above, we can look up and see clouds and trees. Apart from my buddy, there is no life in sight, and certainly none native to the pond.
Fingertips tingling with the cold, I follow my buddy back to our hole and escape to the surface. It seems like an eternity, but my watch says just 20 minutes and my dive computer hasn't even switched on; we haven't been deep enough!