SCUBA SIG

Hi Everyone,

After Cozumel, I did go up to Anchorage, but there was an extratropical cyclone with 80+ mph winds on the weekend when they scheduled the PADI Ice Diver course, so the instructor cancelled it because the tenders who would have been holding our lines at the surface would have been in danger.  We relocated to Lake Whittier (about an hour from Anchorage), where the mountains around the lake blocked much of the wind, but because of that lake's high salinity, there wasn't ice - I completed nine cold water dives there Instead.

I did just complete the ice course with the Dive Right In Scuba shop in the Chicago area.  They have their own PADI Course Director who is great, an instructor who is solid, and an AI who is learning.  Here is a snippet of one of the dives - I'm not a videographer so it is two minutes of raw footage - it is just me tapping on the bottom of the eight-inch thick layer of ice above us, then tugging the tender rope three times in a row to signal that we need to be pulled back to the hole we sawed in the ice: https://youtu.be/lNv3tA9L2gk?feature=shared

I stayed until I got to thirty ice/cold water dives in total, so I finally qualified for the Antarctica trip on March 10-20.  I'll let you all know how it goes - here is the info:

https://oceanwide-expeditions.com/antarctica/cruises/hds30-26-antarctica-whale-watching-discovery-and-learning-voyage

Travel to Antarctica | Expedition Cruises to Antarctica

Congratulations!