Diving Symposium

Golden Gate Bridge

 This will be short because it's well after 1am and I have to be at work by 8:30 tomorrow.

I spent last week in Monterey, California at a symposium for the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS).  They are the organization that sets the standards for scientific diving.  It was interesting to see my first annual AAUS symposium and to see coastal central California.  It really was beautiful out there even though the pictures might not entirely show it.

Steep Streets of San Francisco

Kelp on the Beach!

The symposium was successful in the sense that I was able to see the other Diving Safety Officers (DSOs) from other universities.  The chance to network was very helpful because I now have faces to put with names and diving programs.  It might take a few years to really get it but I'll eventually get to the point where I personally know the DSOs from the universities that we are getting some students from as well as to where we're sending some divers once they finish at UM.

Monterey, California

I learned while there how special our program is.  In talking to people from other programs, it made me have an even greater appreciation for ours.  Our gear is top of the line, we have a big pool, year-round diving that is easily accessible, 2 full-time motivated dive officers, extensive courses, the list goes on.  My opinion of our program being one of the best is now much more based on actual experience instead of bias.

I have already begun working on a presentation for the next symposium in Curacao.  It outlines our training highlighting specifically some of our unique and cutting-edge techniques.  I am proud of the scientific diving program I work for and I am extraordinarily thankful for being able to be a part of it.  There is often a feeling of frustration when trying to explain my job to people because there is only a small fraction of people who actually understand what I do and to everyone else who doesn't quite understand, my job description doesn't quite describe what I do.  It's a frustration that is largely unnecessary since others' impressions of what I do don't matter but I still feel it from time to time.  Maybe I'm just developing an ego because I do honestly think that our program is better than most others and I believe from the bottom of my heart that my opinion is virtually unbiased

Is it really a bad thing to be proud of my work and to believe that we are doing the best we can do in the diving program?  My feelings are internalized and I'm not going around telling other DSOs that I think our program is better but is it really a bad thing just to think it?  I sure hope not because it's too late and I can't help it.  I think I'm overall personally humble and modest but apparently part of me wants to throw modesty to the wind and have more recognition and respect in the professional world.

Politics

Politics.  I hate it.  I have never understood, appreciated, or been interested in politics at any level.  However, the election is coming up soon and I feel that it is my responsibility to exercise my right to vote.  I have never affiliated with a political party before which at this stage is beneficial because I'm not swayed one way or another based on blind loyalty to one party or another.

One issue that I see recurring on news and campaigns is taxation.  One side claims that I should pay more taxes while the other side is telling me that rich people should give me a break and pay some of my share for me.  Both candidates are saying that their system of taxation is fair so who am I supposed to believe?

Taxation was created in the US on a percentage system.  Everyone is required to pay back a certain percentage of whatever he or she makes.  The rich pay hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars more than I pay in taxes to the government while the poor pay much less than I do.  The percentage system was put in place to account for the rich making more money than the middle and lower classes.  They already pay tons more than we pay.  If I work my butt off my whole life and earn a fortune, I don't want to be responsible for paying more than my slice of the pie.  With that system, we're going to turn into the European Union where everyone calls on Germany to bail them out.  How can we expect to keep calling upon the upper class to bail everyone else out?  If we keep taking their money, sooner or later there won't be an upper class left and who will save us then?  Whose money will we take once we exhaust all of their savings?

What I think is fair is everyone stepping up and pitching in their portion, even if this means the majority of our country (myself included) pay a little bit more.  Where that money is spent is a whole other issue.

In other news, I'm going to California on Sunday!  It is for the American Academy of Underwater Sciences and I'm quite excited about it.  It will be interesting to see how other programs are run.  Plus it will be nice to go to Monterrey for my first time.

Deflation

For my job (Yes, as a teacher.  I never though I would say those words.), I am creating modules that are computer-based for our students to complete while we are out of town.  The task is very straightforward and generally involves opening an already existing powerpoint presentation that has been used for years to teach the class, making it more interesting, record the audio of myself presenting it slide by slide, then write up a 10 question quiz at the end to make sure they understood all the material.  It's more involved and glorified than that but if you strip it all down to the bare bones, that's essentially what I'm doing.  Yes, it is straightforward.  However, it is extraordinarily more time consuming than it sounds.  For a 12 minute presentation, I put about 15-20 hours of work into it.  I have just completed my third and fourth presentations and I'm pretty satisfied with them.  They have all the information in a good powerpoint layout without too many words, sprinkled with photos, splashed with humor, narrated in a very interested and engaging tone, and takes the place of a long lecture.

It has finally come back around to me that students have completely disregarded the presentation and have just skipped to the quiz.  They can take it a few times so I imagine that they just re-take it, learning which are the right answers along the way, until they pass it.  I really shouldn't care, but the hardest part for me is all of the work that I've put into it gets completely disregarded.  I put all of my free time into making these modules as educational, interesting, engaging, and entertaining as I possibly can, and then it turns out to be for nothing.  It's a deflating feeling.

I don't like what it feels like but in time, I'll get over it.  I don't want my happiness to be dependent on what other people do or don't do.  If my students already know it all, then there's no problem with them skipping everything.  If they don't know it all, it will show up on the midterm and final exams.  I am proud of my work and I enjoyed putting forth so much effort to make what I've made.  That's far more important than whether anyone else appreciates it or not.

Kick It Up A Notch

Photo: www.infobarrel.com

In December I'm going to take a cave diving course.  I can't wait!  This is one of the types of diving that I've been looking forward to for a long long time and it just so happened that a spot opened up in a course that I only need to pay for about a third of the cost of a typical cave course.  I'm not wishing my time away between now and then but I am REALLY looking forward to it.

Looking Back

Olin Hall was pretty much my home for 4 years.  Math, Astronomy, Physics.

So here I am at 1am when, instead of sleeping, I'm here on the internet.  Often I would consider what I do on the internet at this hour wasting time by checking emails that never come, browsing music, surfing Wikipedia, updating facebook, etc.  Tonight I was about to go to bed when I ran into a facebook group that I was invited to join.  It was made for my graduating class at Denison and the idea, at least in the short term, is to update everyone on what we're doing.  It brought a wave of nostalgia crashing over me.  Sure Ohio isn't my favorite state, but boy do I love Denison University.  I have a lot of loyalty to the University of Miami, but Denison to me has a much more special place in my heart.  Since graduating, I've only been back for 2-3 days which was to visit for graduation in 2010.  I'm still in touch with a handful of people from Denison, some on a regular basis and others I'll talk to every year or so.  By and large, there's no one from Denison with whom I would consider myself in good communication.  I have a history of not keeping up with people.  My whole life I've had this issue.  However, that's not the topic of the night tonight.  Tonight, I'm simply trying to express that I miss college life.  I miss being an undergrad at Denison.  I miss the friends, the close proximity, the schedule, the opportunities, the clubs, the knowledge to gain, the scenery, the friendliness of the school and surrounding town, the professors, and really having a defined role in all of it.  My mind is just drifting through memories of my time there in no particular order.  I'm thinking of my work with the Physics department, the concerts I played, my freshman year dorm, spending time in the observatory, track meets, roommates, dining halls, classes, and then much more specific experiences.  I poured all of my effort into doing my best during those years and because I was so fiercely devoted to giving it my all, I am now all the more attached to it.  Denison will forever be my alma mater no matter where I go or what I do.

Music Revival

I finally got a couple marine science grad students together to play some trios with me!  One is a violinist and the other plays the cello.  We have another violinist in the mix but she's in Texas right now so we'll have to wait for her to get back.  We're meeting up next Thursday evening at my house to play together and I can't wait!  The last time I played music with anyone else was December of 2010: over a year and a half ago.  From the day I picked up a viola until now, today literally marks the longest amount of time that has passed since I have played music with anyone else.  It's not the longest amount of time since I've played alone, but definitely since I've played in a group.  Crazy.

Pulley Ridge

Hi Friends,

Mike and Casey goofing around on decompression.

I'm now safely back in Miami after a fortnight's adventure at sea was cut short by 3 days due to the impending tropical storm/hurricane Isaac that was coming in from the Caribbean.  Overall it was a successful trip and it is the first of about 5 trips that I will be taking for this project.  As I might have said before, the capacity to which I was a part of the team was as the support diver for the rebreather dives.  The way I work as a support diver is by getting the team in their gear which includes a rebreather, lift bags, reels of line, clips, hoses, 3 extra stage deco bottles they clip onto their left sides (see the photo from the last post), and collection tools.  Each of the four divers has the configuration slightly different so although the beginning phase was slow, I was setting them all up in a flash by the end of it.

Rebreather team

I honestly don't really know much about the science that was going on during this research cruise.  I do know that the rebreather team, other than the three dives it took to set up the instruments on the moorings as mentioned a couple posts back, were diving to collect samples of specific fish, corals, sponges, and algae.

Me on deco, photo credit Casey

Yes, the cruise was a success all things considered.  Sure we had to go home 3 days early and cut our productivity, but for the time we were out there we were working very hard and very well together.

I got home Saturday evening and spent that night and all day Sunday with Christina at home taking shelter from Tropical Storm Isaac as we were hit with rain.  She had work today but when she got there they told everyone to go home after an hour or two because it was too rough to take any boats out and a little too dicey to be taking down all the hurricane shutters yet.  So... she came back home to me and we're spending time together by finishing a movie we started yesterday, making dinner, learning more salsa moves, and now reading.  Well, she's reading while I'm posting this update.

We had up to 10 silky sharks at a time.

Work is going to kick off tomorrow in full swing.  As I've mentioned, we're teaching two classes this semester (same course but 2 different sections) so it will be much more demanding than ever before.  Tomorrow the students are not having their pool session tomorrow since we need to go over a few lecture sessions before we can get them in the water so the whole day will be spent getting everything situated for the semester ahead such as packing everything away from the cruise and figuring out space for all of the new gear that we had to purchase to accommodate the double enrollment.

Sharks all around us!

The semester ahead will be busy so I hope I find time here and there to keep everyone updated!

Quick Update

Casey and the shark.

I'm really tired so this is going to be short.  On the dive today (which remember, I'm only a support diver so I'm not seeing the bottom) we saw a 6-7ft silky shark and a pair of adult dolphins.  They came and went throughout the decompression, never seeing the shark and dolphins at the same time.  It was the first time I ever heard dolphins communicating underwater.  A very cool experience.  Things are going well and I'm having a great experience.

Out to Sea

Research Vessel F. G. Walton Smith

I’m back out to sea for work yet again, for the last time for many months to come.  We came on board Tuesday the 14^th at 6:30am.  The Walton Smith was under way less than an hour later.  Tuesday was spent getting familiar with the boat, watching a required UNOLS video, going through a boat orientation, having science meetings, and setting up our gear.  It was a slow day and I was very tired for most of it.  Yesterday was the first diving operation.  I’ll spare the details but a couple enormous weights are dropped and 2 rebreather divers descend to 180ft (50+m) to attach some instruments to them and connect a line between the two weights.  They will send up a buoy when they are on decompression which is the cue for me to descend and meet them at 100ft (30m).  I take information from the divers about their well-being and the decompression schedule, ascend and relay the information to the boat, then drop back down to be with the divers for the remainder of their ascent.  The dive I completed yesterday was to 98ft for 61 minutes.

By the end of the day yesterday we set up the second site with the two massive weights and the plan was to complete the dives on them this morning.  Everything was set and the divers entered the water on time.  Within 5 minutes, they surfaced with a current that was unbeatable even with torpedo-like scooters with which to fight it.

We are now in transit to Pulley ridge where we will set up the third and final mooring site and do a dive there.  By sunset, another part of the project will start up that involves me to dive to about 30ft (10m) to set up what is called a light trap.  It’s an apparatus that involves a net and a flashlight that will be set up at sunset and retrieved at sunrise to trap larval fish.

Hopefully we will be able to make everything happen according to plans from here on out!

A Taste of an Update

A couple quick things before I drift off to sleep:

Christina is great.  We spent most of the day together today starting out by going to Panera then a bakery then after walking around for a bit we came back home, she left for a little while, then picked me up after dinner to hang out with friends before coming home to briefly practice salsa.  We've been learning salsa moves over the internet.  She knows how to salsa while I have no clue.  We put in a couple hours a couple weeks ago and tonight we managed to recover all that we had learned and even start learning a new move.  I must say, we look good.

Photo: www.halcyon.net

Pending an official notification from RSMAS, I have been moved full-time to the dive office now.  There are a lot of changes that are taking place there this semester in addition to my move.  For the first time in the school's history, we are running two courses in the same semester and as a result we are expanding our inventory.  Instead of getting the standard backplate and wing, Halcyon has agreed to provide us with a custom orange and green version of their standard setup, which is shown here.  It will probably make more sense once we get the new systems in and I can take a picture of them and post it here.  Until then, either use your imagination or if that fails, just forget I said anything for a month until they come in and I can post a new photo.  The bottom line is that a diving program using Halcyon gear is already unprecedented.  Once we have custom orange and green wings, we're moving into a league of our own in terms of gear inventory.  Other changes are taking place but it's too late to list them.  I'll explain in full detail once information is made public.  Until then, hang tight.