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In an effort to appease my grandfather who requested that we are more timely with the posting of our updates, my write up will not contain the content that Jonna's always do or the humor that Jim is so eloquent with, but it will summarize our day with pictures and little text.
Just when we thought it was over, after the heavy equipment was put away and the gas and diesel cans were put up for the next crew, we decided to drill (or melt) yet another hole. This was all spurred by the morning dive ending in a flop. Jonna, Stacy, and Dan went diving at a site that was suppose to be in 40 meters of water but when they arrived at that dark and icy depth, the bottom was nowhere in site. Instead of investigating deeper, they aborted the dive and we reconoitered on the surface.
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Stacy demonstrating her surf moves on the cookie after the dive. |
This was another site set up by Paul Dayton. When he was here in the 70's he placed metal poles on the shoreline in a triangular array to help locate his sites. After lunch, we found those poles and deciphered that the hole where they dove in the morning was approximately 50 meters from where the site was actually located (according to the line-ups).
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| The flags in the foreground and the barely visible flags in the background were lined up with Stacy who is standing on the sea ice to locate the 40 m site. Jim is on the shoreline 90 degrees from me with similar flags for line-ups. | Jennifer holding the flags used to triangulate the whereabouts of the 40 m dive site. (ed note: She's really not quite as wide as she appears in the photo) |
So this time, instead of blasting the dive hole with dynamite, we drilled a small hole and put the Hotsy (a modified steam cleaner) in the hole (see Jim's write-up). Hot glycol is pumped through the coils and the ice is melted. The Hotsy has to be refueled every 4 hours so we take turns doing the midnight and 4 am shifts. Hopefully this hole will be diveable in 48 hours. Once the hole is large enough for a diver, we will chainsaw the top layer so we can actually reach the water.
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Stacy and Jennifer receive tips on how to properly drill a hole from Rob the Dive God. |
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How many red coats does it take to drill a hole? |
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| Jim and Rob contemplate whether the hot finger (the coil in the foreground) will fit into the hole while Craig is lamenting over how the Jiffy drill isn't really all that Jiffy. |
Jim's Haiku for the Jiffy drill:
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| In the early evening, Dan and I were chipping ice and Dan proceeded to get the 6 wheeler stuck in the snow after our break-dancing session on the blue ice. After I stopped laughing and taking pictures, we were able to get the Polaris free. |
Our beloved guests, Rob and Mike, left via helicopter. Our team was alone again. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of salmon, polenta, and split pea soup prepared by Jim. We topped the evening off with the movie 'The Princess Bride' shown at the New Harbor theatre.
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| The New Harbor theatre with your choice of upright or prostrate seating. |