Diving the wreck of the Oregon

First of all, my apologies at neglecting this blog. I have missed many opportunities to write about my diving, including my trips to North Carolina and Grand Bahama and my drysuit certification at DUI Dog Days. I've been diving lots and loving it -- though I've also been rescheduling a lot of shifts at the aquarium and will probably incur the displeasure of the volunteer coordinators as a result! It's just so hard when the local dive season is so short (for us wetsuit divers, anyway).

Today I'll talk about my dives on the wreck of the Oregon, a passenger ship that sunk in 1886 about 22 miles southeast of Fire Island. You can read all about it here. For such an old wreck, there are still several cool things to see on it. My reason for wanting to go was because I wanted to see the steering quadrant, a huge cool wheel that I had seen in pictures from when some of my dive buddies went last year. Even though I am still pretty new to northeast diving, and shouldn't really be attempting anything too ambitious, I was hoping to get to the steering quadrant by following someone else's line. Unfortunately that wasn't meant to be since when we got there, another boat had tied on to the usual mooring, and we had to tie on in a place that was too far from the steering quadrant. I dove with 28% nitrox hoping that would increase my bottom time by a bit, but diving wet it was really the cold for me that was a limiting factor. My computer registered 48 degrees F. Somehow though, I used all the bottom time allotted to me on both dives (15 minutes, I think). I could have rented a drysuit but I really didn't expect it to be that cold! And yeah I didn't like the last experience I had with a rental drysuit. But ohmygosh, 48 degrees HURTS. I was swimming around paddling my feet just to keep them from going numb, and my hands were painful and tingling as we reached the end of our bottom time. On the second dive the cold was already unbearable at 50 feet, and that was only halfway down!

Photos by Mike Rothschild.


I must add a special thank you here to Rich, one of the newest Sea Gypsies, for lending me a spare mask when I realized I forgot mine. (It's not in my house either...really hope I just left it at the aquarium.)

Still, it was a nice dive, and a good experience for me. I set a new personal depth record -- 116 feet, and I could have gone deeper. Saw lots of starfish, of all different sizes, and a fish that looked like it had antlers, which my buddy Dr Mike said was a hake. I was not really looking forward to getting in the water for a 2nd dive, but the 2nd turned out to be better than the first, because I swam around and made the best of it. There was one other diver in a wetsuit, but it was a 2-piece and probably warmer than my full suit. Everyone else dove dry. I'm torn on the drysuit issue. I know I would be much more comfortable diving locally in a drysuit, and that they last a long time. But the diving around here is so far kind of one-note to me. You see pretty much the same animals everywhere, and the wrecks often don't look like much but heaps of rubble. Still, I get a kick out of diving in my own "backyard." I could go on a dive trip to somewhere warm and beautiful for the price of a drysuit. I'm looking into getting one for a discount, on Ebay or from a local shop.

Starfish (sea stars)

Hake

The boat we went on was the Garloo, which I went on once before last year when I did the USS San Diego wreck. Again we arrived night before and slept on the boat, since it departs at 6 am. It has private cabins, which is nice, but it smells not so very nice. Someone had told me the smell was fixed, but it smelled exactly the same to me -- kind of like moldy wood, bad enough that I breathed through my mouth most of the time. I guess it used to be even worse. It was also extremely hot inside, but I slept better than I expected to. The power went out several times and toward the end the water crapped out too. There are a lot of things I take for granted on dive boats that this one didn't have -- like a hose or a cooler of drinking water. We also never got a boat orientation or a dive briefing from the crew. I guess most people didn't need it, but it was strange not to have that. The worst thing though was the exponentially increasing contingent of biting black flies we shared the boat with. They seemed to be attracted to our wet gear, and bug spray didn't help much.

Last year at an Oceanblue Divers party I won a silent auction prize for another trip to the San Diego on this boat. I want to do it, but I must admit I am not a huge fan of this boat! Next time I will bring perfume or something to combat the smell. Not sure what can be done about the flies though.

Word of mouth!

Had a lovely morning scrubbing structures in Glover's Reef today. Stayed down for 2 hours! The massive (about 3 ft long) hogfish startled me a couple times, suddenly showing up in front of me or next to me as if to say "Hi. Whatcha doin'?" Luckily they seem harmless.

It made me very happy today to learn that one of the people I spoke to at the last Sea Gypsies meeting has started the process of joining the dive team. The dive coordinator is very happy with me as a result and even gave me shout-out in an email to the entire dive team for my recruiting skills. :) So happy to know that all my babbling about the dive team is spreading the word and helping the aquarium!

Always working out the kinks in my gear set-up. I had considered bringing the BP/W for a test dive in a wetsuit, as I've only worn it with a drysuit, but in the end decided against it. The Zeagle BC works great for the aquarium and it's much lighter to carry. Still, I should make sure that BP/W works well for me before I take it to North Carolina. It still felt a little awkward when I practiced with it in the pool on Tuesday. Today I wore my 3 mm wetsuit with hooded vest like last time. Stayed down for 2 hours and wasn't cold! Next time I have to remember to bring my octo holder, and maybe something to keep my inflator hose in place. I also need to remember that I don't have to wear as much weight when I'm in a lighter wetsuit. When I left today, I left all my gear in the dive shack because I forgot about wanting to go to Dutch in 2 weeks for White's demo day. Ideally, I would have one set of gear at the aquarium and one at home (at least during local dive season), but I will still need to carry my regulator back and forth, as it's too expensive to get another at this point. I also don't have a spare mask or booties, but those are easier to get. Oy, so much stuff!

Not on a roll

The past couple of weeks have not been going superbly well for me. Despite Mercury retrograde and all signs pointing toward "Just stay home," I did not stay home this weekend. On Saturday I went out with friends, and on Sunday, I went to Dutch to finish my drysuit class.

But let me back up a little. Along with a couple of dive buddies (Sarah and Emily), I did the pool portion of my drysuit class on April 10. We learned about the different kinds of suits, then figured out which of the store rentals worked best for us. The suit that I ended up with felt huge and heavy. It was an orange crushed neoprene DUI suit, the kind with the diagonal zipper in front. In the pool above the dive shop, it's pretty warm, so I just wore sweats underneath. The pool class went okay I guess. The crush of the water around my suit pinched my toes painfully, but I felt like my buoyancy was pretty good when I swam along the bottom. The problem came when we practiced inversions. As part of the class you learn what to do should you accidentally become inverted and have the air in your suit go up into your feet -- you roll out of it, forward or backward. Well let me tell you, I did not have an easy time with the sensation of floating upward by my feet in a 12-foot pool. I guess I was tense, because when I did my roll, I pulled a muscle in the back of my head and neck. I didn't feel it until the next evening. I knew I wasn't completely comfortable in the suit by the end of the class, but I was also exhausted, and I tend to just not feel well after diving in that pool. The same thing would happen when I did my original open water cert classes there. I don't know if it's the chlorine fumes, the heat, or the late hour (it was well after 10 when we got out of the pool), but I always leave that pool feeling nauseous and exhausted. Thank goodness that isn't a problem when I dive in the real world.

The instructor, Pete, suggested I come back to the pool during the week to practice, but my head was hurting really bad and at that point I just wanted to make sure I'd be well enough to do the open water part of the class the following Sunday. I went to the doctor, who gave me a neurological exam and agreed that I had probably just pulled something. She gave me muscle relaxers, which I took, and Percoset, which I didn't. I felt well enough by Saturday that I went down to the dive shop to try on neck seals (mine had leaked a bit in the pool) and hoods. After that I went out with some friends in Brooklyn and even had a few beers.

The next morning I got out bright and early to meet the others at the shop. I got there so early I was able to have a sit-down breakfast at the diner down the street. It was looking like a lovely day. When I got to the shop everyone was already there, including Demian, a guy I met at my nitrox class who was accompanying us for his divemaster training. I felt good and was glad I had decided not to back out. It took us awhile to get on the road, but it was a nice ride. We went over our written tests in the car on the way.

At the park, I was excited to finally get my season pass and get in the water, even if it was going to be VERY cold. The problems began immediately. My BP/W, which seemed to work fine in the pool, was falling off my left shoulder. It felt wrong, but I was going to make it work, until the instructor commented that it looked bad and made me switch it out for one of the regular BCs he had brought. Seeing as how I was already suited up and in the water, that sucked. It took forever to get my weight belt sorted even before he sent me back to change my BC. My friends were getting cold, so they decided to start their dive while I changed BCs. And then I fell on my face as I was climbing up on shore. The dive hadn't even started and I was already a mess. To make matters worse, I was overweighted.

So Demian and I get back in the water and swim out to the platform to try and meet up with the rest of the class. But they were already done with their dive. Pete swam back out to meet us. He went over the dive plan: swim around platform, then under the platform to the schoolbus, then back to the platform. Despite my funk of earlier, I actually felt pretty good through most of the dive. There was some big fish inside the schoolbus, which made it fun to swim into. I carefully exited through the door and not the "windshield" as I've gotten stuck there before. The dive was nearing its end and we were swimming back to the platform. I was nearly there, I was even beside a line, when I started to ascend. When I realized what was happening, I felt like turning to vent my drysuit would not work fast enough, so I started jerking my arms around in a most unprofessional manner to keep myself from shooting to the surface. Pete told me later that when I started doing that, it was all over. At least I remembered to "Ahhhh" all the way to the surface like you're supposed to, to prevent lung overexpansion.

When I got to the surface I knew I had screwed the pooch on the whole day. I wasn't getting certified. I was really upset, and on top of that I was scared that my rapid ascent had actually put me in danger of injury, which made me hyperventilate a little. The truth is, floating on the surface of that icy lake, feeling frustrated and all alone, I pitched the fit of fits. I screamed, I cried, I punched the buoy. I had no idea that anyone else could hear the ruckus I was making until a guy on the lifeguard stand got in a boat and started rowing toward me. Then I saw all the people standing on shore looking at me. I was mortified. I wanted to slip under the water and die. I thought, that's it -- not only am I not getting drysuit certified, they're going to take my open water certification too, and my Dutch Springs season pass. And all my fellow Sea Gypsies are not going to want to dive with me, the crazy girl. When the guy in the boat got to me I told him I was fine, and he seemed sympathetic. He rowed back as Pete and Demian surfaced. We all swam back to shore. I didn't know how I was going to show my face. It was bad enough that I screwed up my ascent, why did I have to embarrass myself further by pitching a fit like that? Because I thought no one would hear me out there in the middle of the lake, that's why! Well, now I know better -- if you scream enough in the middle of Dutch Springs, especially on a not-very-busy day, everyone in the park can hear you. Mortifying.

So by that point my morale was in the toilet. Everyone was so nice about it though, even Suzanne and Renata who had been standing on shore watching the whole thing. And what about Demian, who had never seen me dive before? Ugh, I wanted to crawl in a hole. Pete said we'd try to fit an extra dive in, but at that point I was not feeling it and had really given up. I still don't trust the exhaust vent on the drysuit to vent fast enough to prevent me from ascending too fast. Why didn't I hold on to that line? Why did I have to be a big shot? Dr. Mike consoled me with a huge hot chocolate. Emily brought out some amazing muffins and bread she had made. That helped a little. But it sucked knowing I wasn't getting certified that day.

The second dive went better -- sort of. We dove the wreck of a plane I've never seen there before. The plane itself was pretty awesome. But then my weight belt came undone and started falling off. The same damn thing happened in the pool! I guess it's time to buy another weight belt for myself (I have one that lives at the aquarium). It took a bit of work to get it back on, but I managed it. I even managed to pass the part of the class that involves disconnecting and reconnecting my drysuit hose. As we started to swim back up, I didn't see my exhaust vent working and started to freak out that I'd have another uncontrolled ascent. Right when I thought I was okay, Demian grabbed me by the shoulders and suddenly the two of us were floating face-to-face. At first I thought he saw/heard me freaking out or saw me going up too fast. It took a whole minute to realize that he was breathing off my octo. We swam together to the school bus where Demian got Pete's attention. This is officially the most fucked-up day of diving I've ever had, I thought. I've never had anyone have to grab my octo before. I've heard that often people are more likely to grab the first air source they see, which might be the one in your mouth. In that case I'd really hope my octo wasn't floating somewhere out of its holder, which happens often. That's another reason to get a reg necklace like the pros use!

But anyway. Demian ended up being able to go back to his reg, I think, or he switched to Pete's -- I can't remember. The problem was that his reg had been free-flowing. I managed to surface properly, at least I managed my 3-minute safety stop. Ended the dive with 300 psi. When the dive was over, we still had to demonstrate that we could remove and re-don our BCs and weight belts. That was very difficult, especially in a BC I wasn't familiar with that had a cummerbund that I forgot about. It didn't matter anyway, I wasn't getting certified that day no matter what I did.

Ultimately I'm glad I went even if my day seemed cursed. It's always best to discover equipment problems in a place like Dutch than out in the ocean, where conditions can be me much more unpredictable. I don't feel comfortable in a drysuit and wouldn't have had much respect for an instructor willing to certify me in that state. Pete has offered me a free pool session next week, and I'm taking him up on it, even if it will be the same drysuit (which wasn't the best-fitting thing) and the same pool that I don't enjoy diving in. I need the practice. If I learned one thing about drysuits from this experience so far, it's that being comfortable with one's equipment is of the utmost importance, and rental equipment often won't fit properly. Ironic, since my main reason for getting a drysuit cert was that it would help me rent drysuits until I'm ready to buy one! Oh well. I plan to go back to Dutch for the drysuit demo days coming up. It will allow me to try out different suits, and for cheaper than it costs to rent them from Pan Aqua.

New exhibits opening at NY Aquarium

Glover's Reef and Conservation Hall opening at the NY Aquarium this Saturday!

This weekend I will not be diving at the aquarium, because I will be finishing my drysuit certification at Dutch. At least I hope I will be, because right now I have some sort of muscle spasm in the back of my head that is probably the result of inversions done in the pool last Sunday. Ow. :(

Next time you hear from me, hopefully I will be drysuit certified!

Glover's Reef, my wing, and drysuit training

Saturday I dove even though it wasn't my scheduled day. Dad gave me a ride, which was a nice start to the day. I was covering for someone (Allen) who had agreed to cover the shift I'll be missing on the 17th, when I'll be at Dutch Springs doing my drysuit class. We all dove in Glover's. I was especially excited because not only was it big, clean, nice tank with a lot of cool fish, but it is warm and I can wear a thinner, somewhat more comfortable wetsuit. As it turns out, I was a bit chilly, but I did stay in the water for 1 hour 45 minutes, making this dive my longest ever (yes, it was no more than 12 feet of water, oftentimes less). Glover's is in pretty good shape at the moment, but I know it won't stay that way. It's a big tank and there are a lot of structures in it. Cleaning structures where you can't see much dirt isn't really satisfying, and you can never be sure which spots you missed. A few of them did definitely have some algae buildup already, but not a lot. It was also a more challenging dive than I was expecting because there's so much to get yourself caught on. Diving requires a lot of hoses and your field of vision isn't what it is on land. But I got accustomed to it as I worked. Generally the fish stayed away from us, but every once in awhile an enormous hogfish would do a curious drive-by.

Each of us were assigned structures to clean, and like I said, it was hard to know when you were done. So we moved on to adjacent structures as soon as we were done with the assigned ones. Turns out this was the wrong thing to do. Dick got upset with us for spreading out too much over the tank. Apparently our assignments are to keep us together in a particular area of the tank so that the fish can escape us if they want! So after about an hour and 15 minutes, we all surfaced and got a talking-to. I had bad leg cramps at that point, and almost got out of the water, but Dick told me to pull on the front of my fin with my leg straight and that helped. My legs are still particularly tight from the run I did last week in my new barefoot shoes. I love them but they work my calves particularly hard and I'm not used to it. I must have also been hungry because I was thinking about pizza for most of the time I was underwater.


In keeping with my last couple of weekends, Saturday was a jam-packed day. On my way back from Brooklyn I met up with a guy in my dive club who has been helping me fix up this used Dive Rite backplate and wing I picked up, in this case the wing. The power inflator it came with was rusty and this guy told me he could swap it out with one of the many he has lying around. He did most of the tinkering last weekend and it turned out I needed a new part, which he ordered and put on for me. The wing still seemed to be leaking. The owner of the workshop we were working in (it's also a dentist's office) came in and ended up helping us fix it. So I guess I have a working BP/W now! It's not perfect yet, and depending on who you ask it may never be. I dove with it for the first time on Sunday night in the pool at Pan Aqua, where I am doing the PADI drysuit certification class. But I think that is going to have to be another post because I have written enough for the moment.

Spring approacheth

I didn't post after my last aquarium day because I didn't dive, but I should say something about it in here anyway. It was my first time doing surface support on my own last Sunday. It was in otter, which was fun because while the divers were in the water, I could go around back and watch the otter play in his holding pen. He did somersaults till I got dizzy watching him. The divers in the water were at the surface cleaning windows for a good part of the time, and one of the divers, TJ, was very chatty the entire time, even if he was complaining about his too-tight wetsuit. The weather was also very pleasant, so what could have been boring and tedious was actually quite nice. My only screw-ups were forgetting to take the tape off the scrapers before handing them to the divers, and allowing one of my gloves to get blown into the water. No biggie.

After the aquarium I met my friends Sarah and Emily in the city to watch the DVD needed for our PADI drysuit specialty class (funny when I typed PADI I first wrote PAID), which we start this weekend. The video was a reiteration of everything in the book and frankly, a cheesy waste of time. A lot of people have told me that a drysuit class isn't necessary and that they just bought a drysuit and dove to learn, but I still don't know if I ever plan on buying a drysuit. Most places require certification before you rent, so if I'm going to rent it makes sense to get certified. I also liked the idea of taking the class with my friends. I am excited to dive at Dutch again.

And in other exciting news, I am diving Glover's Reef for the first time this Saturday! Lighter wetsuit, warmer water, woohoo!

Fish move

The whole time I've been at the aquarium (starting in November), Glover's Reef, the large exhibit at the entrance to the aquarium, has been under construction. Its fishie residents have been living behind the scenes while the reef exhibit got a cleaning and some rearranging of its (yes, fake) coral. Today it was time for the fish to move back in, and I volunteered to help. It was originally supposed to happen last week but there was a problem with the water, but today it had to happen to be ready for the reef's scheduled opening next month.

Several members of the dive team were there, though most of us didn't dive. The job was to move the fish in wheeled garbage cans from the holding tank to Glover's. I was stationed on the deck above the Glover's tank. It's open on top and there was a beautiful view of the ocean. Definitely not a bad way to spend a morning. Most of what I did was take the wheels off the garbage cans so they could be put in the water and the fish could swim out. The fish were drugged so as not to be too disturbed by the move, and when we put them in the water they were lethargic and kind of out of it. The lookdowns were the wonkiest -- at first they lay flat in the water, beating their fins and hopelessly swimming around in circles. It was tempting to pick them up and put them right, but it's important not to handle the fish as it can disturb their protective coating. As the buckets came in, Dick, who was in the water, asked "What have we got?" Cownose rays, yellowtail snapper, goatfish, grunts, damselfish, hogfish, sergeant majors. "We got fish." We joked that it was like a sushi menu. Before the summer is over I will have no excuse but to know every species in Glover's Reef by heart. I hear the sergeant majors are vicious little devils who will bite divers who come too close to their turf. I still can't wait to dive Glover's -- I might get to this Sunday actually. :)

At 10 all the keepers take break -- mandatory! I ran into my friend Melinda in the cafeteria, she volunteers a full day every Wednesday, preparing food for and feeding the animals, among other things. After break, I followed some other divers to the shark tank for a special behind-the scenes view of the feeding. But our real purpose for being there was shark teeth! Sand tiger sharks naturally lose teeth all the time, and they fall to the sand in the bottom. The keeper fished some out with a net for us. Check it out!

Beneath the Sea recap

Whew, BtS is over and done, and I am happy to have my feet up!

Hmm, what can I say about this year's diving expo. In some ways it was a blast, but there were also disappointments. The best part of this weekend was the people. One year ago, I didn't know many divers, and I didn't know much about diving, particularly local diving. Apart from my certification dives at Dutch, I hadn't really done any local diving a year ago. I didn't know any local divers other than the few people from Dive NY I had met at a Sea Gypsies meeting. This year was a different story. Walking around the exhibits, so many people stopped me and said hello. Some were fellow dive club members, some were aquarium divers, and some were crew on the boats I had dived from this past year (lots of large middle-aged men were eager to chat me up, ha ha. I don't think they see many young women doing local diving!). I wore my NY Aquarium Dive Team shirt and several people asked me questions about it. It made me feel so much like part of a community, it was wonderful.

I didn't have any revelations or pick up any fantastic new gear or decide on a new trip or anything like that, but that's okay, I wasn't really expecting to. I will do a few things differently next year. I probably won't buy a weekend pass. I'm glad I went Saturday and Sunday, but it ended up that my friends weren't interested in the Saturday night film festival or party, so I could have saved money on those. The Fish and Famous Gala on Friday was rather lame (cash bar, bad music, silent auction prizes way out of my price range). Next year if I want to go out Friday night I'll just go to the much cheaper and more age-appropriate Tech/Wreck party. And if I table for ScubaBoard.com one of the days, I'll get in for free anyway.

Yesterday was spent wandering the exhibits and attending a seminar or two. Dr. Mike, Sarah and Melinda came in the afternoon and we wandered around together. Notable booths included the Montauk shark dive charter (Sarah wants to do it too, I really hope we do it!) and the Florida Keys Coral Reef Restoration Foundation. I may do a trip down there sometime to help restore coral nurseries. I also talked to the Aquawoman Dive people, and it sounds like a really nice event -- Long Island women divers renting boats for an all-women day of diving -- but in the end I decided not to do it just yet. Even though I'm sure they would have accomodated me, I'll wait till I'm older and more experienced. Beneath the Sea has a lot of great deals on travel if you're ready to book at the show, but a lot of my travel plans are already set for this year and I don't have a regular travel partner. I meant to make it to more seminars, but I found looking at the booths to just be more fun, and unfortunately Sylvia Earle, the woman I really wanted to see speak, was inexplicably a no-show. Boo. Oh well. Then we went to to the Sea Gypsies party, and that was fun if loud and crowded, and then we got dinner, and then everyone went home. I would have liked to stay out later, but the truth is I was tired so I guess it's just as well. And OMG SO COLD OUTSIDE, wtf??

Today I felt like I could take or leave the show, but I had volunteered to table for ScubaBoard, so I had to go. Also, one of the SGs had told me her boyfriend could help me fit the blackplate and wing (a type of BC) I bought at the LI scuba flea market this winter. He did a lot of work moving the buckles around and cutting the webbing, even cutting himself in the process, and now my BP/W actually fits me! And I got to see a friend who was tabling for Sea Shepherd, which was cool. ScubaBoard turned out to be interested in partnering with Sea Shepherd and offered them a message board on the site, which was a cool little bit of networking. Total purchases for the weekend: 1 t-shirt (octopus), 1 tank top (Sea Shepherd), 1 dive flag charm for my Monterey Bay Aquarium charm bracelet. And lots of free posters, postcards, and stickers. 

Now it just needs to get warm...and the dive season can begin!

Sea Otter

Today I got my aquarium ID! The funny part is that it says "Animal Dept" under my name. All the other divers' IDs say "volunteer." Oops! Ha ha.

On Friday I took the day off to dive at the aquarium. I had to use the vacation day or lose it, and I figured it can't hurt to accumulate aquarium shifts now because I plan to miss a few this summer. We dove in sea otter (no sea otter inside though, they gated him) and I got to use the vacuum pump for the first time. That thing is great! Vacuuming is one of my favorite cleaning chores on land, and in the water too, because sucking things up without having to touch them is fun. :) In sea otter we were vacuuming pieces of shells and algae. The exhibit is split into two tanks with a narrow entry between the two that we had to crawl through sideways. There were only 3 other people there and things felt a lot more laid-back than they do on Sundays. We spent more time chatting before the dive and then when we were done we all went to lunch together in the cafe. I had thought I'd be home by 3, with time for a nap before the BtS Gala, but between lunch and an impromptu sea lion show, and then a not-so-quick ride back to Manhattan, I wasn't home till 5. I had an hour to get dressed and meet Dr. Mike in the city. It was an exhausting beginning to the weekend, but it was all fun!

Pooped

 EXHAUSTED. Another whirlwind weekend draws to a close. Another exciting day at the aquarium. I had thought today's assignment was to clean fur seal. Fur seal was said to be 52 F. I was game, if not thrilled, but I am dedicated. Fur seal is one of the exhibits where they gate the animals so you're just swimming in an empty tank. So I was surprised when I suited up and the keepers gated the sea lions and not the fur seals and said the water was a toasty 64 F! Okay, nice. But imagine my further shock and delight when I enter the exhibit and there's 2 sizeable harbor seals peeking out of the water at me! "There's aminals in here!" I declared, and the other divers said, yup, they only gate the sea lions. I had thought we didn't swim with any mammals! I walked up to the edge of the rocks and promptly slipped and fell on my ass, wearing my tank and everything. It was jarring but I was fine. I was still in a "I can't wait to tell all my friends" haze. They told me I would be scooping poop. Sure, whatever, bring it on, I'm diving with friggin seals, yeah!

Scooping poop underwater is not easy. Not hard in the way it would be on land, because underwater there's no smell at least. But those things fall apart if you try to pick them up and even if you just try to wave them into the net they go every which way but in. There weren't a lot of intact poops, it was kind of a hunting game for those. Mind you while I am swimming around, through the little arches and tunnels in the exhibit, every now and then a seal would swim over or under me. It was a little bit scary at first, but I knew they wouldn't touch me. They did regard me curiously though, and one held eye contact with me once for several seconds, which was awesome. When I had exhausted the poop search I got a brush to scrub the rocks, but most of them really didn't need it. In the places where the sun hit there was some green algae growing.  I was having trouble getting down to the bottom when it occurred to me that I forgot to put extra weights in my BC. I usually add 10 lb to my BC at the aquarium. Luckily the surface support guy had extra and I was able to get down again. I went back to scrub some rocks and noticed these tiny worms would attach themselves to my gloves when I would brush in some places. I had to brush them off me. Later another diver told me they come from the seal poop. Ew ew ew! One got on my hand later while I was rinsing my gear. I really hope seal parasites are not contagious to humans!

It wasn't cold at all and I was starting to feel like most of the work was done, so I spent some time mugging at kids through the glass, which is always fun. From inside the exhibit I could see the walrus was in the window of its tank. A visitor on the other side motioned for me to go into that tank. Um, no lady, is it not enough for you that I'm in here with the seals?! I guess she thought all the tanks were connected. Getting out of the exhibit was a bit embarrassing. There was no ladder and by the end of a dive I am so pooped that I couldn't haul myself out on my own. I had to take off most of my gear in the water ungracefully while visitors watched. Every time I dive I learn something though, and I hope that with time I'll have aquarium diving down to an art. Things like equipment setup, air management, weighting. I did try my secondary reg necklace today and it worked great. Most of you probably don't know what I'm talking about, that's okay. I'm tired.

After the aquarium I went to the Central Park Zoo to get in the rest of the animal handling practice sessions I need to be able to do the shows this year. And 'cause I'm nuts. I don't even want to talk about how many hours I was on the train today. I had some trouble with Harley the mini lop. It's tempting to lift a rabbit out of a carrier the way you'd lift a cat, but you can't just grab its middle and lift because you can break its back. You have to scoop underneath, supporting its feet. This is hard because this rabbit is not small. And it doesn't particularly enjoy being scooped out of its carrier. I will still need to work on that but they passed me anyway. Amazingly the skittish chinchilla posed no problem. Imagine a really big soft cute rat. They feel a lot smaller in your hands than they look because their fur is so poofy.

I didn't go take pictures of the baby goats. They're so cute though. I saw them yesterday. But I was so friggin tired today. I then went to a dinner party after all this. I'm home now and just punchy with exhaustion.

Did I mention I finished the sweater I was working on? I love it. It's awesome. I have to go weave its ends in now. And then sleep. Right. Good night!

My day as an aquarist

The guy who runs Oceanblue Divers has offered me a "regular" spot on the website blog. I like the idea of it but am afraid I lack the discipline to write regularly about my experiences diving. And yet I enjoy talking about my diving so much, maybe I should. So I want to get some notes down about yesterday's experience at the aquarium.

As a member of a NY Aquarium dive team, you get an assignment every 2 weeks on your designated day. Most of the time the assignment is diving in and cleaning an exhibit, for instance, the sea otter exhibit or a coral reef tank. Another possible assignment is surface support, which means you don't dive but keep track of the divers in the water and communicate with keepers and the volunteer coordinator. A third possiblility is being assigned to work in the coral lab, which I had the pleasure of doing for the first time yesterday.

I was asked to help Mike, who is one of the coral lab keepers. One of his many responsibilities is maintaining the aquarium's coral nursery, a room of about 12 large tanks that house baby corals, coral-dwelling fish (Nemo!), and even sea monkeys (aka brine shrimp). [Note to self: Sea Monkeys would be a great name for a dive club.] The aquarium grows the corals for use in smaller exhibits, particularly the ones in the part of the aquarium known as Conservation Hall.

Every day the water temperature of each tank must be taken and each night, calcium must be added to the water for the health of the corals. You may already know that corals are very sensitive to changes in water temperature. But did you know corals like a very low nutrient environment? That's partly why coral reefs are such great places to dive -- the water is clear because of a lack of nutrients. At the aquarium, plants are sometimes added to the tanks to soak up these nutrients. The water up around here, in contrast, is loaded with nutrients, which makes the water green and murky. Coral also need calcium to survive. In the ocean this comes from disintegrating seashells and sand, but at the aquarium it must be added to the water. Water must also be occasionally added to the tanks to compensate for the water that evaporates. This is also why the salinity of the water must constantly be measured.

My task was to go around and take the temperature of each tank. Then, with Mike's help, I filled the calcium drip buckets on top of each tank with RO water, which has been cleaned by reverse osmosis. At night this calcium solution is allowed to drip slowly into each tank. My third task was to check the salinity of each tank using a tool called a refractometer. After calibrating the tool with RO water (zero salinity) I went around to each tank and put 3 droplets of water on the "screen" and then looked through the other end like a kalidescope, where I could see a display telling me how much salt is in the water in parts per thousand (ppt). If the salinity was too low I called Mike over and he showed me how to add salt into the tank's filtration system.

Another fun part of being on coral lab duty is mandatory break at 10 AM every day. I now know the Aquarium cafe serves cheap breakfast before the park is open to the public. :)

After our break Mike took me on a brief tour of the Conservation Hall filtration systems. Mostly this involved Mike talking a lot about backwash and semi-closed versus open systems. I nodded a lot and asked just enough questions to make it seem like I knew what he was talking about. The filtration systems for that exhibit are all brand new and computer-controlled, and I can tell Mike is really excited about them. He also showed me the frog room, where there are several small tanks of different types of frogs. There was a White's tree frog, a tomato frog, and a tank of African bullfrogs, among others.

At around noon, just when we were about to feed bloodworms to the fish kept in the room next to the coral lab, the volunteer coordinator came around to collect us and call it a day. Mike told me the aquarium is understaffed and that just those small tasks that I helped do saved him a lot of time for other things he's responsible for, like payroll. He told me I'm welcome to come volunteer at the coral lab any day, and I get the sense that if I had the time and the inclination, I could basically be an aquarist's apprentice.