Recovery dive last week

[ethanb]

This is slightly morbid, but it's the only diving I've done lately and I thought I'd post it.  We were asked to do an ice dive last Thursday to recover a family pet from a farm pond.  It was brutally cold - the air temp was 7 degF and we were near the top of a windy hill.  I suited up in the car and left it running with the heat on for the entire dive. 

I stupidly put my gear bin in the car the night before and froze the diaphragm of my regulator slightly squished, so it wouldn't stop free-flowing - I had to swap in a spare second stage before I could go diving.  My BC inflater was also frozen and didn't become usable until several minutes into the dive. 

Viz was pretty terrible and it wasn't a particularly spectacular dive, but the family was quite grateful, as they'd been unsuccessful at getting the sheriff or fire department to do it, and were moving to a new house soon.

Here's the one photo we took, prior to me getting in the water.
Photo credit goes to Tamara Thomsen.

Ethan