- Andrew Ryzebol is a professional ice diver from Canada who tells PEOPLE exclusively about his frigid adventures deep beneath the frozen surfaces of the Great Lakes he explores.
- The athlete shares the key to surviving swims in such extreme wintery conditions without an oxygen tank, including the shocking amount of time he’s able to hold his breath underwater.
- Ryzebol details some of the most fascinating discoveries he’s uncovered during his deep dive excursions over the years, recalling some of his earliest finds from over one decade ago.
Remember as a kid when you’d try to swim across a 25-yard pool without taking a breath, or you’d take a big gulp of air in an attempt to touch the 12-foot bottom? While those were likely innocent summer pastimes with friends, Andrew Ryzebolhas made it his career, only colder and more extreme.
Imagine the aforementioned scenarios, but with a wintery — and potentially treacherous — twist. The Ontario native carves a hole into a thick sheet of ice that’s formed atop Great Lake and dives down 200-plus feet into uncharted, freezing waters with nothing but a mask and fins.
A wetsuit, too, is worn — but at times, he opts not to. At this point in the story, you’re probably wondering why someone would voluntarily put themselves in a daunting environment that’s both physically and mentally taxing upwards of 20 times per year during Canada’s coldest months?
“I had a lot of fun doing it,” says professional ice diver Ryzebol, 36, in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE about his niche hobby that’s conveniently evolved into a career since his first-ever underwater exploration in 2010 at age 21. Unsurprisingly, it spawned from a dare.
Ice diver Andrew Ryzebol float beneath a bed of ice on the surface of a Great Lake.
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While on a camping trip in Canada at the time, Ryzebol reacted to a challenge posed by his best friend who introduced him to free diving “completely by accident.” Bored, the duo turned to Google for activity inspiration and found shipwrecks in the area.
“When we were on this one wreck, my friend, being a 21-year-old young male, dared me, ‘I bet you can’t touch the bottom,'” he remembers. Confidently, Ryzebol countered.
In an attempt to prove his buddy wrong, he took a “big breath” and swam down with the little diving knowledge he possessed at the time. “I didn’t blow my ears out, thankfully, and touched the bottom,” he says, proudly recounting his accomplished mission.
“I came on up and he’s high-fiving me. We couldn’t believe how deep I went,” Ryzebol looks back with a laugh. In hindsight, he playfully deems the celebratory reaction of his then naive self “really embarrassing” compared to his unimaginable, yet remarkable diving achievements to date.
Professional diver Andrew Ryzebol explores ice beneath the Great Lakes.
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For context, Ryzebol’s spontaneous dare-driven dive was approximately 16 feet. “The deepest I’ve ever dove was 63 meters, or 207 feet,” he says of his personal milestone today, pointing out that his record depth was done in cold water.
Ryzebol says he’s “sure” he “could go deeper” than 207 feet if he attempted the dive in warmer and calmer water; however, that particular feat isn’t something he’s prioritized. Why? Because for him, the purpose of diving is deeper than how deep he can physically go.
“The main appeal for this sport is that you’re not just exploring what’s around you, but it’s also an exploration within your mind,” Ryzebol tells PEOPLE of why he free dives. “It’s the most mental sport that I’ve ever participated in, by far, and I’ve been in a number of different sports.”
Ice diver Andrew Ryzebol.
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One may assume a person’s ability to reach great depths underwater in near-unbearable temperatures is strictly dependent upon physical fitness, but Ryzebol says there’s more to it than that. Essentially, it’s a mind game.
“Even if you’re not the most physically fit, you still have the potential for your mind to take you much deeper than your body can,” he emphasizes. The “mental challenge,” in part, is why he does it — and does so safely, most importantly.
In 2015, Ryzebol decided to take free diving seriously with education courses and eventually earned certificates to teach the sport himself. He also earned himself the “professional” title, too, and now encourages others to get “proper training” before attempting it blindly.
“There’s obvious risk with holding your breath underwater,” he says. “If you hold it for too long, you would black out — and if you black out and you’re by yourself, then that’s the end of you. There is no way around that.”
Breath-holding ability, specifically, is a crucial skill needed for free diving since an oxygen tank isn’t used, like in scuba diving.
“We take a big breath and then we go down. We dive just on that one breath,” Ryzebol explains of the sport, sans equipment. “We’re just doing it on all pure human power… the longest I’ve held my breath now is eight minutes and 20 seconds.”
“It took me my entire freediving life to get there,” he shares. That statistic is impressive, according to research that states an average person can go without air for approximately 30 to 90 seconds before needing to take a breath.
Ice diving beneath a frozen surface.
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However, Ryzebol makes note that his personal record breath-holding duration was achieved while “not moving at all” and laying completely still. “The longest dive that I did was half of that. Actually, exactly half of that, four minutes and 10 seconds,” he says.
Obviously, a body’s oxygen demand increases with activity, so specific training is necessary to lengthen that skill. “I go through periods of time where I specifically train just to try and see how long I can hold my breath,” he adds.
For ice diving specifically, Ryzebol makes clear that he’ll never stay underwater for the entire period that he’s capable of holding his breath to account for a “huge margin of safety.” Instead of a dive maxing at four minutes, he’ll aim for a one-minute dive on average.
Lily Ryzebol prepares to ice dive without a wetsuit.
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In addition to breath holding, ice diving with a partner is crucial for safety, for more reasons than one. The “biggest risk” of ice diving is not being able to spot the hole that gives access to the surface (or, in other words, air).
This typically occurs when a diver is too shallow, therefore warping their perspective of the surface and making it very challenging to locate the hole from which they entered. Therefore, Ryzebol says they always have a “safety diver” who sits right beneath the hole.
“Even if I can’t see the hole, I’ll be able to see my safety diver… or maybe we’re using a line,” he explains, often diving with his wife Lily. “We don’t want to lose our hole. We want to be able to come back up and dive another day, instead of die another day.”
Since exploring that first-ever shipwreck when he was 21 years old, Ryzebol says he’s seen some “really crazy things” during his ice dives in the years that followed, citing the ice formations beneath the Great Lakes as the “craziest.”
It’s quite special, he says, of the formations below. It’s wild, too, that only those who choose to take the frigid dives themselves will be privy to its natural beauty since it’s not visible from its deceiving surface above.
“Picture a skating rink, but the reverse side of that are all these crazy plates intertwined and stacked forming into what we call icebergs. They’re not technically icebergs, but they’re massive,” he raves, noting some that are roughly 10 meters wide and eight meters tall.
Ryzebol credits his years of experience and gained knowledge to mastering where to saw an ice hole in the flat surface above mesmerizing ice
Andrew Ryzebol and his wife, Lily, pose together before ice diving.
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“We can picture what that looks [like] underneath. So, as we’re hiking out on the ice, we’re looking at how things are looking on the surface,” he explains. “You also have to pick a spot where the ice is going to be not too crazy thick, where you can actually cut through within a reasonable manner of time.”
There are several reasons Ryzebol is attracted to ice diving, the majestic formations being just one of them — along with the physical and mental challenges of the sport, too. But it’s also the unique human connection with Mother Nature that draws him in, something that’s rare to many.
“It’s such special and precious moments that we get to have with the ice — and very few people get to do it,” he says. “We’re so blessed to be able to explore this, and be some of the only people ever to do this, really.”
Ryzebol has traveled the world for diving, but his ice diving exploration has remained “almost exclusively” beneath the Great Lakes.
Ice diver Andrew Ryzebol pops his head up for a breath amid his frigid adventure.
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“I would say that we’re in the best location in the entire world to ice free dive because we have good infrastructure anywhere,” he says of his own backyard. “We don’t have to hop on a plane, fly somewhere, stay in a hotel… we never get bored around here.
Despite the narrow window the ice-diving season in Canada lasts, stretching from January to mid-March, Ryzebol makes the most of it — and pushes his limits each time, from eight-plus minute breath holds to over 200-foot dives down.
He also has intentions to explore more of the world, like Antarctica and Greenland in particular. ” I would love to, yeah… Those places have ice that’s more unique than what we have on the Great Lakes.”
For a curious person with an eye for adventure, Ryzebol — who says the “primary goal” is to “explore the beauty of the ice” — has fortunately, only just scratched the surface.
