WK 1: Breathing Underwater

Hello. My name is Victoria, and I am an Emergency First Responder and Advanced Open Water Diver. May I help you?

My first week on base has blazed by in a blink of an eye; and yet, as I settle into the daily routine it feels like I've been here for months. Most of the activity has been centered around Advanced Open Water certification, Emergency First Responder certification, coral study, and orientations.


A typical day for me begins at dark-thirty in the morning. I make my best to tip-toe silently out of the dorm for a little 7K loop to the nearest bus stop and back. Wearing a headlamp, I run with the ocean waves as my soundtrack. It's a great way to start the day. I find it peaceful and relaxing- it's my "alone" time and it's definitely an adventure.

It's still dark when I return to base, but the morning light seems to time itself perfectly for breakfast and morning duties at 6AM. Depending on the day and the week, an individual will either be responsible for tanks, grounds, boat, or kitchen duty. While on tank duty, the tanks are to be filled and stored in the kit room. Grounds is basic base maintenance and cleaning. Boat duty requires individuals to crew the dive boat, maintain radio contact with active dives, and ensure that the boat has all the equipment required. Lastly, kitchen duty is all about making yummy meals. If it weren't for the time crunch, kitchen duty would be my favorite.

Steph loads her kit into the van (the trailer is out of commission for a while)

This week's dives were tailored to specific dive situations and requirements for Advanced Open Water Certification. The first was a Peak Performance Buoyancy Dive where each diver must determine his or her optimal weight belt configuration for neutral buoyancy and then perform buoyancy skills underwater. The skills included hovering and swimming through hoops. With neutral buoyancy mastered, coral surveys will be much more efficient since diver's will need to get incredibly close to the reef (without touching!) in order to distinguish between certain corals. Depending on the exposure suit I wear, a full 3/4 wetsuit or a 2mm jacket, I wear a 4lb or 2lb weight belt- but, if I were to dive with just a rashguard I could dive without a belt!

The second certification dive was a Boat Dive. This was a very straightforward scenario, requiring a diver to launch from a boat. The skill aspect to this type of dive is determining the right way to enter the water and descend to begin the dive as well as knowing how to ascend and re-board the boat after the dive. All of the dives I will be doing while conducting coral surveys will be from a small boat, so I use a backwards roll to enter the water and re-board using a retractable ladder at the stern.

The next certification dive conducted was the Underwater Naturalist Dive. I was able to distinguish between nearly every coral that was pointed out- although one genus did trip me up because I did not get a close enough look. The reef was teeming with aquatic life and I saw a bright nudibranch, a number of sea cucumbers, big ominous looking urchins, delicate green algae, and even a sea turtle! This was definitely one of my favorite dives so far because it was a small preview of the type of work I'll be doing soon.

Dani and Liz walking out to the boat.

One of the more "entertaining" certification dives was Underwater Navigation. This required diving buddy pairs to navigate around the reef using a compass and natural formations as necessary. But before we could traverse the reef, my buddy and I had to determine how many kick cycles it would take to travel 20 and 30 meters. We swam above a tape measure laid out on the ocean floor and while counting our kicks- I was spot on with 18 kicks for 20m and another 9 kicks for the last 10m. Once we had general idea of how far we were swimming, we set out navigating 20 meters out and back using natural navigation and then a reciprocal heading. These two tasks were fine... however navigating a square required a little more effort. Despite its simple geometric shape, one must account for drift, current, and, of course, diver error. My buddy and I were successful at completing our square pattern around the reef the second time around. It was an excellent exercise in learning to use a compass underwater and I learned how to use a surface marker buoy without getting (too) tangled up in the line.

Advanced Open Water Divers!

Friday's Deep Dive was the final Advanced Open Water Certification dives. This dive took us about 24 meters underwater where we performed a few simple skills, saw the effects of water on light and color, and maintained buoyancy at a greater depth. The only downside (pun intended) to this dive was that it was much shorter than our other dives, only about 25 minutes as opposed to 45, to compensate for the increased depth.

Everyone celebrated the first week on the base during Friday's BBQ. It was a delicious feast of burgers, chicken, and sausage (meat is a real treat!). We also had amazing sweet vegetable chili sauce, grilled vegetables, fresh humus, rice, and oven-hot cinnamon cookies to top it all off. I went to bed extraordinarily satisfied from dinner, good company, and the week as a whole. The only thing that could possibly be better are the weeks to come.