Carvers Dive Into Pumpkins Cda Hosts Underwater Gourd Carving Contest
Underwater basket weaving would be easier than this.
About 10 scuba divers ducked under wind-whipped whitecaps on Lake Coeur d’Alene Sunday to carve pumpkins underwater.
Just offshore from Sanders Beach, they spent up to 45 minutes underwater, competing to see who could carve the scariest, most creative, best overall or best pre-drawn pumpkin.
Or, if all else failed, who could win the award for “Best Waste of a Perfectly Good Pumpkin.”
“This was 10 times harder than I thought it would be,” said William Bell of Hayden. “I think I made a mistake in bringing a larger pumpkin because it had a lot of buoyancy.”
Bell wound up carving his pumpkin upside down on accident. He stuck a gourd in its center for a fat, green nose.
Greg Whittenburg of Athol also found underwater pumpkin carving harder than he expected.
“It’s just that everything is weightless,” he said. He, like other divers, put weights into the pumpkin to keep it from floating once he’d gotten the lid off.
“With the waves there, you move back and forth with the pumpkin and try not to poke a hole in your gloves,” he said.
Whittenburg’s pumpkin, which was carved like a diver and wore goggles and a snorkel when he was finished, won both the “Best Overall” and “Most Creative” categories. Divers who won in their categories received prizes donated from Tom’s Diving in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane Scuba Center, said Tim McCall, who owns Rainbow Towing, sponsor of the event.
For carving tools, divers were allowed to use only diving knives, which look like little daggers and are more commonly used for cutting things that might entangle divers underwater.
For Troy Gilbert of Coeur d’Alene, the biggest challenge was trying not to drop everything, he said.
Plus, “the water is a little bit cold, even with a dry suit,” Gilbert said. “It’s a little difficult to clean out the inside.”
Most of the guts remained inside the pumpkin when he brought it out of the water.
Divers brought bags with them to keep the pumpkin guts in, but the current emptied most of the bags before they could reach the shore.
Though McCall has heard of underwater pumpkin carving contests on the Pacific Coast, this was the first time Rainbow Towing held one here, he said, and he plans to have another contest next year.
“People do it at home all the time, so we’re going to do it underwater,” he said. “We’re always looking for something to do and an excuse to dive.”