When you get to dive under ice it is to normal
diving what normal diving is to swimming on the surface.
I won't pretend I wasn't more nervous on these
dives, but they were really unworldly and a fabulous experience. Your bubbles
rise and stick against the underside of the ice making great silver mirrors as
they do so. The dive hole that you worry you will lose before you go down
becomes a great search-light shining down from the surface.
You see things in the water in these winter
conditions that you never see otherwise, in this picture for instance, I'm
swimming through a huge swarm of sea-creatures related to jellyfish called
"Ctenophores" you can make out 3 of them oval-shaped objects behind me in the
picture. There were literally thousands of them drifting slowly by, most are not
visible in this picture. Ctenophores have bands of cilia that run their length
and waft them along causing interference patterns as they do so, this looks like
a monochrome world, but in reality it was surrounded by numberless rainbow
phantoms.
Paul Ward -
This picture may not be copied or used in any manner without
prior written permission.
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