ICE-DIVING AT THE “KASTELEINSEPLAS”

On January 12^th 2003 we finally made our first ice-dive for our course Ice-diving. In a short search to find good ice, Ronald and I came to de Kasteleinseplas in Emmeloord. After walking around for a place with good ice, we saw some other divers who told us they were going to make an ice-dive as well the next day. This was nice of cause, but we didn’t want them to know on which place we wanted to dive the next day.

We quickly contacted Bert Bos (our Instructor) to tell him the ice-dive could take place the next day. We also told him we weren’t the only ones, so it would be smart to start early. Bert had his own ideas about it and said: ”Let them go first and we will go later then it would be a lot more quieter. That is why we agreed to meet at the Bastion Hotel in Almere at 11:30 hours.

On our way home, Roland Stigter and I thought we had to come earlier to the promised place, because the visibility would be very poor incase others would be first. We decided to go earlier with a small group to be sure our place would not be used by other divers. That’s why we called Fred Berckmans and he liked the idea also. The same afternoon we met to check the list of materials we needed and came to the conclusion that we almost had all the material at home. So we decided to meet at the dive-site at 10 o’clock the next day to prepare everything before the others of our Ice-diving course would come.

Next day when we came at the Kasteleinseplas we were the first so our nice place was secured.

We informed the farmer, who lived close by the lake, that we were going to make an ice-dive. So he wouldn’t be scared of the noise we were going to make with our chainsaw to make the “bijt” (hole in the ice) and the smoke of our “professional” fire. Only half an hour before the others came we were finished preparing everything. Specially sawing the “bijt” was a nice but tuff job. Fred quickly took the chainsaw and started sawing while I held him by his belt, because we didn’t knew what would happen with the thin ice. Fortunately every went well.

Ronald already made a nice fire and he threw some grind on the ground because of the snow. After a short break my cell phone rang and we heard that the others were coming soon, so we decided to make the diving list. 

As soon as everybody was there we put on our Dry-suits and after we had the last information from Bert, we quickly started.

Everybody was enthusiastic about diving under the ice and the buddies quickly followed each other. Some of us made a small hole in the ice to breath through a snorkel. Koert Weststrate told us through his Snorkel that everything was alright with him, that was very funny to hear. Bert also wanted to make a dive, so he went under the ice with Mario Pals. When he was underwater for a few minutes Bert didn’t feel so comfortable and told Mario so by giving him the proper handsignal. Bert told us that it was already a few weeks ago that he made his last dive and that was the reason he didn’t feel well and he aborted the dive. In our believe this was the right decision and also a good lesson. If you are not comfortable during a dive, abort the dive and try again next week.

After an nice debriefing by the fire, we cleaned the dive-site and put back the piece of ice and secured the spot. Then we went home, hoping that we could make an other dive the next week, to complete our Ice-diving course. Unfortunately the next day the ice was very poor and a few day later al the ice was gone. We hope to end the course next year by making another ice-dive and have a great diving day again.

I like to thank everyone who made this day a success.

Translator Koert Weststrate