Scientific diving is one of the major components of preparing for field school. Besides packing, making sure you have enough of the essential sun screen, and coordinating travel arrangements, we have to complete checkout dives. The dives consist of five days in a controlled environment (a nearby quarry—Fantasy Lake), with two days in the ocean and one day in the Tar River.
At Fantasy Lake, we practiced diving with drysuits and full face masks, worked on navigation, and learned search and rescue skills. Each day we completed 3 dives to hone the skills we learned in the pool during the preceding school year. Overall, my favorite was the full face masks. The purposes of the open water dives was different. We did four dives over two days in the ocean on USS Indra, a landing craft repair ship. The first day (2 dives) was to familiarize the group with diving in the ocean, diving on a wreck, and diving with Nitrox. The second day combined those aspects with the added task of measuring the site. The last day of checkout dives was spent exploring USS Picket, a Civil-War-era gunboat, in Washington, North Carolina. There, we have an opportunity to dive in near to zero visibility. The process of diving over the course of these two weeks has allowed for some of the differences to hit home. There was a moment when several of us could not believe that diving is part of our (future) career! Going out and diving every day, even in water with limited visibility (unlike the Caribbean waters we will soon be diving!), made us extremely excited for field school.
Now that we have completed scientific diving, our main preparatory work for field school begins. This includes short talks and lectures on various aspects of Costa Rican life, history, and heritage. For instance, various members of the class will give short talks about pirates, slave ships, slave ship archaeology, and anchor recording. The crew chiefs will give lectures on the marine life, how we will be conducting certain searches, and the local community. I am excited to hear about the history, culture, and activities of a country I never thought I’d get to visit. The ‘I cannot believe that I get to do this’ factor hit hard here again! Another major component of field school preparation is gear distribution. It is important that everyone carries a selection of the group gear in his or her luggage. In addition, we will have snorkeling and swimming practice almost every day. This will take place next week. After that we are off to Costa Rica!
-Bettie