DEMA 2007

Whew, I survived DEMA 2007. This was my first dive industry trade show and boy was I impressed. A few things I learned right off the bat: 1) Carrying the name "rolex scholar" goes a long long way 2) divers are, indeed, absolutely nuts 3) I can actually forget to eat 4) i never have any luck winning dive trips.

DEMA was a four day event full of vendors from dive equipment, trips, live-a-boards, resorts, apparel, and art. Although quite overwhelming, it was easy to find my sponsors and I was pleased to finally meet many of the names I had been emailing these past few months. I wandered up and down the aisles with Robin, Anya, and many other scholarship people. By the end of the four days our backs, knees, shoulders, and feet were throbbing but it was well worth it. The people I met were amazingly nice - taking time out from their very busy schedule to talk with me, tell me about their work, and the possibilities of working together in the future. I was introduced to a few of the well known artists including Pascal LeCocq and Rogest - Rogest grabbed me and had me, sitting on his knee, read aloud a tongue twister poem about parrot fish peckers. Apparently I didn't do so well as I later reviewed the video and saw Rogest pretending to shoot himself. I think that's one for the bloopers section of my film.

Giving a presentation of my year at Light and Motion - one of my sponsors

Robin and I waiting to see if we would win a dive trip to St. Lucia.
We didn't but the champagne was good

Igor, me, John Chatteton, and Della (last year's European Scholar from Ireland)
Check out Shadow Divers to learn who John Chatterton is

So all in all it was a fantastic time and I am honored by the way Igor and I were received. The two main parties were fantastic. One of them, on Halloween, included a terrific rendition of Thriller by the Divers Alert Network crew and the other, a formal pirate-themes address was decorated to it's finest even with a band of pirates singing.

Halloween - Anya the shark tries to take a bite

Diving goes NASCAR

Rogest and I in front of one of his paintings

I'm now back home in DC furiously unpacking and storing away the many brochures and pamphlets I will probably never have a chance to look at. It's time to switch dive gear, do laundry, and get ready for my next trip - to Australia!

But first, a shout out to Jenny in Miami - I got to see her for the first time since graduating from Cornell! We had a great night out to Thai food and I made sure she was very late for work the next day.

Passed!

When I finished my first PADI open water course I never thought diving would become such a big part of my life. Almost 7 years later I have gained my PADI advanced, rescue, and divemaster, as well as nitrox, advanced nitrox, deco prodecures, rebreather, and SDI instructor. Today I can put one more on my list of diving accomplishments - I passed my PADI Instructor Exam this morning and am now a PADI instructor! As the examiner handed out the certificates to us he reminded us to go back and thank all those that helped us get here today. I think there are too many to thank in my book since it wasn't only the instructors of my classes that helped me along the way. So thank you to everyone. Now, who wants to get certified?

Gary, the examiner, handing me my certificate

Mission Complete!

Mission sponge was a success!


Two days ago our fearless aquanauts resurfaced after 18 hours of decompression. It was great to see them although they looked quite frazzled, unshaven, and the crazy glint in their eyes remained. They were thrilled to be in some sunshine and walk more than 10 steps in a row before having to turn around. The aquanauts have to stay on the NURC compound site for three hours after decompressing and then afterward may leave only under the careful watch of an escort. This is to make sure no one shows signs of being bent. So after three hours we all headed out for a celebratory lunch at good ol' Sharkeys and then went off to grocery shop for the party that night. The party went well, many nice things were said about the staff, and I showed a video I had made for the group. Being the dork that I am and wanting to procrastinate more, I also baked the cake:

I know Sponge Bob looks a bit out of sorts but he, too, was an aquanaut for a few days.

Unfortunately shortly after this picture was taken Sponge Bob was lost at sea. He was just too buoyant for his own good.

So all in all it was a wonderful mission. The three weeks I spent here will go down as one of the best experiences not only during this scholarship year but in my life. I am amazed at the amount of hard work, effort, technical instruments, and patience this project required. It is not always easy to get work done underwater. Not only do you have normal SCUBA constraints to watch for (time, depth, nitrogen, oxygen exposure) but you don't have the full fine tuning of your hands, tools, or instruments. Try to get things level underwater. Things float away from you unless they have enough weight on them. And if they have enough weight then they are hard to get on and off the boat especially in wavy seas. And above all there is the safety of the aquanauts, the topside crew, and the NURC crew. I am impressed by the group working together to accomplish so much. I am proud to be a part of this mission.
We were awarded certificates at the party and I am now an honorary aquanaut. I am hoping that later in my career I will become an actual aquanaut.

Some highlights of the mission:

Me filming pumping rates of sponges using dye.

Princess Brian

Visiting aquanauts Jim and Patrick at 50 feet down.
They gave Sarah and I hot chocolate

An array of instruments underwater

Howard and Brian working in their dry lab at 50 feet down

visitors!

I had a wonderful visit from the Miami crew -Aunt Kathy and Chris! Luckily our busy schedules finally worked out and they were able to come down to enjoy some Key Largo fun. After a tour of the NURC facilities we headed out to an absolutely wonderful restaurant with one of the best meals I have in a long time. We talked over amazing stone crab, yellow tail snapper, and lobster, and ended it with a toast to the ever-wonderful Mahoney family (you all rock) over some key-lime pie.


thanks for the visit!

a dry spell

It was the cringe in the doctor's face that gave it all away before he even said a word. Either that or the familiar pain in both ears and the feeling of fullness in my eustacian tubes. I knew both ears were infected. Again. This time it's a bit worse and I've been told no diving for at least a week and a half. Well, I am signed up to take my PADI instructor exam next weekend - think I make two dives one in a pool?

I'm sad about not being able to dive this week but of course I will take the opportunity to rest and continue working on my own things. Unfortunately this means our 4 person topside team is now 3 leaving only one buddy "trio" available to work underwater. We've just finished day 7 of the mission - one and a half more days until the aquanauts are shut inside the chamber to start their 18-decompression. This does mean that while the science itself will slow down starting tomorrow, the instruments need to start coming up. Some are quite heavy so they require lift bags and some are quite big so require at least two people on them. Imagine trying to bring up a large piece of equipment that is weighted while trying to maintain your own buoyancy enough to go up slowly and still make a proper safety stop. It's a challenge for sure.

Talking about that - during my last dive today (and, as it turns out, my last dive here at NURC), a very buoyant sample bottle slipped out of my mesh goody bag as we were picking samples up from the aquarius. I caught one bottle but the other one just went for the surface. I took one look at the bottle and one look at my buddy - and she just shook her head in agreement - the bottle was long gone and there was no way we were going to rush up to the surface to get it. Fairly aggravating but it happens.

So back to the ears (sorry, aunt bub) - it just leaves me wondering what is in store for the next months. What will happen in Australia? What if I get another infection? Here at NURC the doctor lives right next door (I had to interrupt his dinner preparation for him to look at my ears). So with the free medical advice and supplies, this isn't a bad place to get sick. So, I guess it's time to be ultra nice to my ears and body, give it a bit of a rest, and try not to dive my heart out in Australia too much.

Sponge bob square pants

Hi everyone!




Just a few days into the mission so far and things are going great. As topside support to the aquanauts below, our days are full of long hours on the water and diving. Our duties include bringing up and down samples for the aquanauts, collecting sponge samples, and having fun diving! I've been doing quite a lot of filming and was even able to film for a broadcast from the habitat for a high school.

Me, Nyssa, and Sarah at the wet porch of the aquarius, about 50ft down.
Visiting the aquanauts!

The instruments are all set up and functioning well and the aquanauts are hard at work every day and night.
We can observe and measure the pumping rate of a sponge by putting dye around the outside and watching the flow of water through the osculum

Working on a barrel sponge

There is still quite a lot to go and I know I'm not the only one exhausted already. Because we use tools and pull on line quite a bit in the water I have a beautiful collection of very small cuts and scrapes on both hands making it difficult to write. That and bruises on my shins from getting in and out of the boat. Not only that but the cuts will not heal very well as we spend most of our days in water. Oh well, I guess I always wanted to be "salty."

Big barracuda

Perfecting our swan dives during our surface intervals

Mission kickoff

We officially kicked off mission #7 this morning and the aquanauts are on their way to the habitat to begin saturation. The four live webcams are up and will be streaming live for the entire 10 days. You can check these out at http://www.uncw.edu/nurc/ and click on "live webcams" in the center of the page.

Team Zissou? No, team Sponge!
Top row from left: Jim, Ross, Howard, Me, Niels
Bottom row from left: Johanna, Patrick, Nyssa, Sarah, Tim, Brian

The aquanauts on their way out to begin saturation

In other news, if you have the chance to visit your local dive store or possibly barnes and nobles, check out the November issue of Scuba Diving Magazine and turn to page 26. You might just see someone you know.

(yes, mom, I have a copy for you)

wind a blowin'

One boat went out today to the habitat - it's about a 45 minute boat ride on relatively calm seas. Today the wind is blowing at least 20knots which will give 5-8ft waves so that's at least an hour boat ride in rough seas. I volunteered to go because I rarely get sea sick but apparently news from the top says they were worried about the "skinny girl" and the heavy (and expensive) equipment. So I'm not going out. Time to do some push ups.

I've really enjoy working underwater here in Key Largo and elsewhere in Mexico, NH, San Juan Island. Not only is it fun to be fiddling with instruments, bringing down bags of tools, or chasing down fish while hovering, there is also a certain sense of accomplishment from getting things done underwater, communicating in charades-like movements to your buddy, and not just being a tourist in the underwater world.

But today is a day off, it does give me time to rest my ears and get some solid non-diving work done. This, of course, means putting more pictures for all of your entertainment and mine. Tomorrow isn't supposed to be any better in terms of wind but work does need to be done so I suspect I'll be diving.

US-1

Otto, Doug, Me, and Jeff

Had a wonderful visit from Jeff Bozanic, my original rebreather instructor

Passing the dive shop nearby

Out at the main buoy for the habitat

Key Largo, Montego. Kokomo, baby

It's been great week down here in Key Largo!
I made it down here last weekend by driving from DC through Durham, NC (where I spent 6 hours visiting Divers Alert Network), staying overnight in South Carolina, and finally making it down to Key Largo. It was a long long drive. But boy was my gas mileage great.

I made it to South of the Border around 9pm. I stopped just enough to snap this picture and kept on going.

So here in Key Largo, I am staying at the National Undersea Research Center. NURC supports diving missions at the Aquarius habitat, an underwater chamber that supports six people to live at 50ft below the surface to dive for 10 days. While great for research science, this habitat is also used quite a bit for NASA training of astronauts. This mission, number 7, is funded by a grant to study sponges on the reef - everything from pumping rates (sponges pump water through them at quite a high rate) to water chemistry. It is a team made up of scientists from Stanford, UNC Wilmington, and Hawaii. And then there is me.

I'm staying right at the NURC headquarters - two small condo buildings made into rooms and offices as well as extensive dive locker and lab space. The accommodations are quite nice and I've had fun getting to know the aquanauts for the mission. They have nicknamed me "Rolex." I think I'm being useful. Either that or a source of entertainment. Yesterday and today more scientists came in - the topside support, the team I'll be a part of. It is a full crew with plenty of excitement and energy for the upcoming work.

I have spent the last week diving with Doug Kesling of UNC Wilmington and NURC. Doug was on vacation but was eager to get on his rebreather unit to get more hours underwater. Luckily enough he has a second rebreather unit that was free for me to use! I hadn't dove on the units since my certifying class in July so I was a bit nervous to get back on them. But after a successful first dive I felt comfortable and confident. I was able to do four dives with Doug on the rebreather.

Doug and I getting ready to drop into the water while a Navy boat works nearby
(Photo by Jeff Bozanic)

Doug and I taking a look at the reef around the habitat. I'm on open circuit this time (see the bubbles)

This past week has been mainly training for the aquanauts (the people that will live in the aquarius) as well as maintenance and set up of the unit. Doug and I mostly dove just to watch everyone work as well as check out the reef and the habitat. It was very interesting for me to watch the work going on underwater as well as on the boat - cement mixing, lift bags carrying who knows what down to the bottom, and divers surrounding the habitat fiddling with gauges and such.

The entrance into the habitat The white structure nearby has a continuous flow air pocket and is the restroom for the aquanauts (as well as a place to talk!)

My first dive to the habitat I actually got to go in! The habitat sits at about 50ft at the bottom. It is saturation diving, which means people actually stay inside the habitat. The habitat is about 50feet under. When you stay down you absorb nitrogen. Your body eventually becomes saturated with nitrogen (so, no more nitrogen is coming in than is coming out). This means that 50feet is essentially turned into "surface" so that diving down to 90 feet is like diving down to 40feet. This substantially increases bottom time and range of doing experiments and training. The habitat is equipped with six bunks, a small kitchen, places for instruments and other storage, and not much else. It is a very close quarters and probably feels like living in a sub.

Me, on a rebreather, on the stern of the habitat - you can make out the bunks

A Goliath Grouper that hangs out at the stern of the habitat.
This fish is larger than I am.

Inside the habitat at the wet porch looking down into the water. This is where wet gear is stored. There is a freshwater shower and dry towels to rinse of and make sure the rest of the place stays relatively dry.

Inside the habitat - the dining table

Looking out from the bunk room

The mission starts this Monday so the past few days have involved starting to set up the instruments underwater. Today we went out on two dives to do this.

The type of sponge we are looking at for the project

Setting up over a sponge

A conference underwater. There is plenty of air in there to talk above the water line.
This gazebo also happens to be the privy for the aquanauts. The fish love it.

And, of course, interesting marine life - a huge stingray!

If you would like to learn more about NURC - check out http://www.uncw.edu/aquarius/
click on Mission and Project info - go to 2007, and find Mission #7. Apparently there will be blogs posted up but you can also check out the profiles for the four aquanauts, Brian, Jim, Patrick, and Howard. You can also see them live on the webcam - which I assume will start sometime on Monday!

Great food (and cheese!), shopping, Irish coffees, and walking in the rain rounded out a great weekend in Seattle with the ever-wonderful Jules.