Dropping in the water today on our field site from the R/V Sabina was a unique experience. We started a dive that ends in ten days. It was definitely different knowing that once I started that dive I wouldn’t see sunshine for about 240 hours or so. Today we were working to get our cages ready for fish by securing the chicken wire mesh that will keep the fish we want inside the cages and the fish we don’t want on the outside. At least that’s how it works in theory. Sometimes the nurse sharks and moray eels have different ideas of who should be inside the cages and who shouldn’t.
It’s easy to get caught up in the work, and I had to remind myself to step back and look around every now and then. When I did, it made me realize how much I love doing what I do. Before I knew it we had been underwater for three hours, then four, then six and it was time to go back to the Aquarius for a hot, but short, shower, and some freeze-dried food. Might not sound appetizing but after a six hour dive it was pretty yummy. Now it’s time to start planning tomorrow’s work schedule. We will get out by six in the morning so that means we need to get up by 4:30AM. But it will be worth the early wake-up call to get to see the reef wake up in the morning. Can’t wait!
Here we are almost at the end of training - Aquanaut candidates.
Our week began by preparing for training by spending most of Sunday in Sharkeys, the local watering hole and purveyors of fine fish sandwiches and hot wings.
First thing Monday we were subjected to some swim tests that were a sprint for some - but an endurance test for others. This was followed by an initial gear briefing and then a check out dive in 8 foot seas with 10-15 ft visibility.
Aquarius missions require an intensive week of training with additional equipment and techniques that recreational scuba divers do not use. For example, our 92 lb. rigs have 2 regulators, one on each of our 2 tanks. We spend a lot of time learning how to troubleshoot and then isolate these tanks and regulators just in case a piece of equipment fails when we are underwater. Contrary to normal scuba diving, we cannot surface, or as our instructors Otter and Ross keep drilling into our heads “the surface is not an option”, so we must learn to solve problems on the bottom. These “shutdown drills” are done repeatedly so we get used to working on our gear underwater.
We also complete a bunch of safety drills that we hope we never have to use, including out-of-air situations, accidental surfacings, lost dive buddies, just in case there is an emergency. Additionally, most of our drills are done two ways - mask on, and mask off - this gets us used to working underwater in stressful situations. For example, our first view of Aquarius today was a big blurry yellow thing that we glimpsed when we were swimming along buddy breathing, it quickly came into focus when Ross and Otter gave us our masks back.
Tomorrow is our last day of training. We’ll learn how to fill our tanks in waystations placed at points distant from the Aquarius; this allows us to do 6 hr long scuba dives without returning to the habitat. On Monday we’ll begin our Aquarius mission, the second for Alex and Deron, the first for Brock and John, but both the veterans and rookies are equally excited to see the ocean from the perspective of a fish.