Are you for Ski SCUBA?

Are you for Ski SCUBA?  A play on the great line from SCUBA Claude of Along Came Polly (2004)!

I get asked a lot about the picture below from my iDive New England Blog Profile, so I wanted to do a quick blog post about it. Plus, as it’s snowing out today, it was the perfect day to write about it.

I’m an avid skier during the winter and I have been a regular season pass holder at Crotched Mountain, one of the mountain’s closest to my house. Every year in the spring, the ski resort holds Spring Fest that includes an annual Pond Skim, where competitors attempt to skim across a small man-made pond with their skis and snowboards.

​One of the annual Pond Skim award categories is Best Costume so I got creative and thought to combine two of my favorite passions, skiing and SCUBA diving.

I donned my 3mm wetsuit and my hood. I borrowed a prop plastic SCUBA tank (excuse me, “cylinder”) from a LDS used for displaying BCDs and “connected” it to my regulator.

​Fourth Element dry gloves did the trick to keep my hands warm.

​Interestingly, one of the biggest challenges was keeping my mast defogged. There is a reason why ski goggles have vents! 

​You can imagine the looks on the other skiers’ eyes during my practice runs down the mountain!

As I wasn’t wearing a ski helmet, there was a risk of my head hitting the tank valve as entered the water so I needed to do some convincing to the Ski Patrol. I agreed not to attempt skimming across the pond as a SCUBA diver. I was fine to comply as I’m no young whipper snapper. I so do not need torn ACL! ​

I managed to get some great runs in as a SCUBA diver that day but the surprised onlookers made it that much more worthwhile.