The Outlet 2008

That was my favorite winter dive around here.

The other crappy thing, for ice diving, is all of the snow we've gotten lately. Lots of snow means very little light under the ice. In years past when we've had thick ice, but no snow, I've had some of my best ice dives ever- you could actually watch people walking around on the ice above you! With this thick snow cover it may be time for some lights to go with the ropes.

I have some tech diving friends of mine going down to some deep quarry in Tennesse next monthto do some trimix rebreather dives. I understand that the lakes rarely, if ever, freeze up down there. My only trips, this winter, will be to Lake Michigan.

Jon

I was looking up the Blount street power plant, which heats the water for the outlet, and it looks like it could be closed through 2011. They are upgrading it from coal to natural gas. I'm not sure just how long it will take to do that, but it's sitting pretty quiet right now.

I also just got off the phone with my father-in-law and he thought the ice was frozen out past the outer harbor wall- which would be close to a 1/2 mile long walk from shore. He was on his way down to his marina to clear off more snow, before the next storm comes tomorrow, and said he would report back what he saw.

If we had some type of tent to change in out on the ice it might be worth a shot. Since we would be able to walk so far out over the harbor we could jump in where the water is already 20' deep- or deeper.

I guess a drive up to Sheboygan to dive their power plant might be an option, but the scuba divers I know who have been there tell me it's pretty shallow for a long ways out- as in less than 6'.

Can you tell that I'm starting to dry out? I never gone more than a week, or two, without being in the water (year round) up until this year.

Jon

I'm concerned the bay is going to freeze this year. Very cold and mondo snow.
This thread got me all paranoid - it's been nearly two weeks since I've been in. I NEED to hit the pool soon!

Anyway - I checked my trusty webcam - no ice yet

http://www.nmc.edu/webcam/

With the cold snap we've had recently I was hoping that they would turn the power plant on and get the outlet up and running again. I drove by and checked it out yesterday after seeing the smoke stacks going at half speed for the past couple of days- 2 of the 4 stacks were running. I was happily surprised to see a pretty good chunk of water open, lots of steam coming off of it, and crystal clear water flowing beneath it at full blast.

Fast forward to this morning with Whopperhead and ILdiver driving in to join me after I told them how great it was- yesterday.:head It seems that things warmed up over night and it was only about -10F this morning so the pipe was off.:head The whole area had almost completely refrozen and we had to break a LOT of ice to get out to the one spot that was still clear.

We did spend a good hour, maybe longer, in the water diving and I did manage to shoot my first carp for the year. We also found a couple of skittish musky swimming around the hole and one very dead muskrat caught in the gates.

Jon

I can't give you carp about it if you admit it!

Keep it till next time. Freeze-a-plooza is coming up soon.

Here's some shots from today.

jon

Here's some shots of Scott from today.

Jon

Nice Centerfold shot of Jon on the ice WHOOT WOOO!

It's the Gimp mask- chicks dig it. rofl

Here is my trip report on this one. I set the alarm on my new watch. I set the alarm for 4:00 am. To bad my watch was 12 hours off and reading 4:00 PM! I woke up at 4:40 and just stared at the clock. I seriously considered calling in sick and not making the drive. I would be kicking myself if I didn't go. It's been 3 months or so since I've been in open water. Ugh...I drag myself out of bed.

Once I was up I was on a roll. I grabbed my dive bag, made sure my gloves and socks were in there and threw it in the truck. Grabbed my float, my speargun and polespear and hit the road. I got 10 to 15 minutes into my drive and I don't know what triggered it, but I realized I did not grab my wetsuit. I'm not doing this dive without a wetsuit I know that for certain! U-turn and back home to get my 5mil wetsuit.

So I'm back on the road, just thinking my usual random thoughts. Refining my script for my video for the Austrailia Dream job and what have you. I decided to send a short quick text to Wreckrunner saying "A beautiful day to dive". A few minutes later my phone is ringing and it's Wreck telling me that he wishes he did not have to work...blah blah blah, we have all been on his side of the conversation, you have to feel bad for the guy!

During my conversation with Wreckrunner I said to him, "man, I hope the power is on". I'm driving 3.5 hours, the temps are around 10 degrees and as I get north there is snow falling. 45 minutes out I send a text to Jon "I hope the power is on!!". As I'm getting off the expressway I can see the stacks. I'm hoping that I am just not seeing smoke because it matches the sky. Right then my phone rings, it's Whopperhead "dude, the power is off and the lake is frozen". I'm crushed.

I get to the lake and we wait for Jon to arrive. Jon asks if we want to try here since there is a hole in the ice or do we want to go to the river. I'm still crushed, I wanted to see some fish and enjoy the outlet, I can't even answer... "I dunno, I don't care, whatever" The call is made to jump in here and give it a go.

Well these two live so close, they are in their wetsuits, I'm in street clothes. Jon was off to the water, Whopperhead was going to wait a bit for me. I'm hustling trying not to keep him waiting. Where is my conditioner....it's supposed to be in my back....no lube... I tell Whopperhead to go, I'm going to be a bit. I make the call to attempt the impossible. This is like a reverse escape magic trick. Getting into an open-cell wetsuit....DRY! I turned the suit inside out. I put my feet in the bottom of the legs and rolled the suit up my legs and got the bottoms on pretty easy. The top was a similar treatment, but the hood + bare neoprene + dry = scared. I had my arms in and started working on getting my head through the hole. I had a fear I would get stuck, suffocate and they would find me hours latter half into my wetsuit with a failed breath hold attempt.

I'm in my wetsuit and I look down to see Whopperhead and Jon finishing their path from the outlet out to the open area. The pool was 30 yards or so across? I made my way down to the water and finally got in. I made my way through the ice field that the cutters had gone out through and joined the other two playing in the 32 degree pool. After 30 minutes my fingers were burning and I was trying to move my arms and generate heat, but I could not get them warm, so I decided to head in.

On my way across the pool I see a small carp, about 5 or 6 pound swimming slowly. I holler back to Jon "live carp swimming over here". I keep an eye on it until they get over to me. Whopperhead filmed Jon plug the carp with a hawaiian sling. So we all got to share in the action of the first fish of the year. If I had a cooler I would have kept the carp. It was a good size for a carp and I could have tried the latest preperation I've seen and fed it to my mother-in-law.

I continued my way out of the water and back to my car. By the time I got my numb fingers usable again and mostly dressed Whopperhead and Jon were back up to the cars. The funny moment of the day: A lady walking her dogs says to Scott "You know your nuts right?" Scott replies "Where did all this snow come from? Jon! How long were we in!?" *everyone laughs*.

Jon headed home to thaw out with his family. Whopperhead and I headed to Gander Mountain to see what they had in Pontoon boats. We figured we would pick on out and someone else could buy it for us to use as a dive boat!

Then off to Applebees. My hands had recovered, but my feet were still tingling a little bit, but not numb....That's a good sign. Steak, potatoes... Whopperhead offered me my choice of Buffalo wings or Chicken wings. ??? Huh? "That's what is says!....*reads* eh...Boneless Buffalo wings...or Buffalo Chicken wings....SHUT UP!" rofl

We talked about the Freeze coming up, new divers joining us and hunting. Then we each went home. Any day in the water is a good day! Right??

I feel pretty bad about the outlet being off.

It was roaring the pat two days and I wish we al could have gotten in yesterday- who knew that -5 was warm enough to close it down?

We could have hit the river, it was wide open, but then we wouldn't have seen any fish.

I also have a bottle of lube and a jug of hot water in the car for you to use if you needed it.

Hopefully freeze-a-plaooza will be better. :blackeye

Jon

Don't feel bad Jon. I had a good day. Just a little disappointed, but it was not with you, just the way the ball bounces. I was apprehensive with there and the river. I was not sure how I was going to handle the cold water. I have not tolerated cold well lately. I don't know why. I don't usually last as long as others in the cold anyway.

Thanks for the report.....I keep laughing at the image of a crime scene with a half-dress Chris that gets deemed "some very strange type of autoerotic asphyxiation".

It would be even funnier if it happened in a Las Vegas hotel room instead by a lake.

Hey you guys, I think you should have a website up. I'm going to put a blog up on mine and you could have one there if you want - I'd be happy to build galleries of your pictures and post them.

But even better would be if you bought the domain wisconsinfreediving.com - it's cheap and I'd be happy to host it up on my account - I need to check but I'm pretty sure I can host multiple domains. I could get you started with a site sort of based on mine and then tweak it as you'd like.

We could start to create a sort of midwest freediving association which might help us with stuff like organizing events, getting laws changed etc.

I dont know if Ive said this before, but I love the beauchat Jon. In addition, I dig the "dahlak" coloration on chris' wetsuit, but have only seen it in the 1.5mm thickness. Ive had four wetsuits though, one was an omer, and one was a beuchat, and I have to say the beuchat was far above and beyond any other stock wetsuit Ive seen or used. Great piece of equipment Jon!

I've had more wetsuits than i can count and the beuchat has been the best off the rack suit I've owned to date. Of all the custom suits I've owned, Elios is still the best- I just didn't want to wait for all of them to get back from vacation to make my suit.

Well, I drove by the outlet today while running errands with my kids and it's ON!:head

I have no idea why it would be on today but off last Saturday? The weather isn't even that cold, compared to how it's been, and it's only supposed to get warmer. The path that we broke out to the hole is now wide open and there's water flowing. I didn't get to go down and look for fish, but they must be there. There is only one stack working right now- compared to the two that were running last week.

Maybe Whopperhead is right- Ildiver is just bad luck.roflroflroflrofl

Just kidding buddy.


Jon

Maybe I'll just buy some snakes and stay home.