Weeks 8 and 9 - Dive stuff

Hi again.

I was super busy last week doing my Divemaster training and such, and  didn't have time to pull together a post. Then I remembered what this blog does for my ego, so I made sure to make an extra big one this week.
So here we have week 8 and 9 put together. It's like the opposite of the Harry Potter or Hobbit movies - no needless editions.

Just chillin

Things that happened the past 2 weeks:

• Still losing weight despite taking protein supplements and eating like a fatty. Again, I will state my mistrust of non-American scales/measurements.
• Ran out of cereal for 2 days. Tragic.
• Set a new record on my morning 5k run.
• Did more mapping.
• Ruined a second mapping dive. 2 in a row, I'm on a roll.
• Downloaded some more Taylor Swift. I am currently blasting her on my laptop while writing this.
• A volunteer confused Taylor Swift with Katy Perry.
• I sneezed underwater. 
• Night Dive!
• Watched some Walking Dead. The episode with Morgan's backstory may be the most boring thing I've ever seen.
• One of our volunteers got an infection which turned into a hole in her leg.
• Watched Aladdin. Best Disney movie ever.
• Played with puppies.
• Team America teammate, Kieran, and I made the quiz for the week. 
• Hell Dives. More below
• Winged a speech to 100 high school kids on how to reduce their environmental impact. While wearing rugby shorts.
• Met the governor of Southern Leyte, Philippines, while wearing rugby shorts. He had the same polo on that he wears for his campaign banners.
• Threw it down Vince Carter style in underwater basketball. Slamma-jam! (see video)
• Visited with Zoe, my favorite turtle. What a doll.
• We got two new volunteers, Jinefer and Eelke, and one new staff member, Joel. Welcome guys!
• Watched Star Wars Episode III. Better, but lightsaber battles don't make up for low quality story and character development.

Week 8 and 9 Video Recap

This is my favorite video yet. Give two boys a coconut and a hula hoop, and you've got yourself an underwater Dunkfest.

Our CNN story airs Friday 11/19 at 9pm California time if anyone cares to check it out. Should be a 30 minute story about the Philippines, and I think we have a 5 minute portion.



Things I've learned:

• American Bald Eagles are cooler than other eagles. Because they are American.
• Not everyone likes you shoving your American dominance in their face. (no, that's not a penis joke)
• Divemaster = Dive Slave
• It is impossible to gain weight in the Philippines.
• Waterlogged coconuts filled with rocks make great underwater basketballs.
• Puppies refuse to stay clean
• British people pronounce "algae" like al-ghee, instead of al-jee. It's disgusting.
• Reading The Shining before bed is a TERRIBLE idea.
• Don't shake a plastic water bottle full of boiling water. It ends in explosion.

.


An Overdue Explanation

It has come to my attention that I have done a piss poor job of explaining what exactly I'm doing here in the Philippines.
Stories about getting haircuts and videos of underwater dunks are great for showing what I do in my free time, but believe it or not, I didn't fly around the world to get a fresh cut and film a few sweet jams.

So here's the rub:

I'm here doing some volunteer conservation work with Coral Cay Conservation.
Coral Cay Conservation is an NGO that specializes in surveying coral and the fish that live around it. They gather data
and present their info to the local environmental officials to help them make better informed decisions
on where to put Marine Protected Areas (MPA). It's pretty cool.


In order to do this surveying we need to be proficient divers and know the different types of coral and fish we are counting.
Duh.
So our training is broken up into two parts: Scuba training and Science Development Program (SDP).
Coral Cay's priority is to get everyone to the point where they can survey, which requires volunteers to reach Advanced Open Water in their scuba training, and finish their SDP.

Upon arrival, your first week is spent getting your Open Water and Advanced Open Water certifications done.

Open Water is the first diving certification you receive, and basically means you are allowed to scuba dive down to 18 meters.
You learn basic skills like breathing underwater, removing your mask underwater, finding your regulator (breathing thing), and establishing buoyancy (floating).
(Every time I take my mask off underwater, I stop breathing for a quick second which makes me burp. Burping underwater is quite entertaining.)
We also do a bunch of book work, called Knowledge Reviews, where we read a chapter of our dive books and take a mini quiz after each one.
Once we are done with the book and all the actual diving components, we take a multiple choice test at the end, and that's it.
Hurray!


Advanced Open Water is the next step, which allows you to dive to a maximum of 30 meters and call yourself "Advanced," which is very misleading.
In the Advanced course you take a pick of different modules to learn, like deep diving, buoyancy, fish ID, navigation and so forth.
You also learn some basic navigation skills with your compass, how to count your fin kicks and measure their distance, and other sweet stuff.
Current makes navigating a bit difficult. Every time I tried to navigate a square, I would end up making a triangle and pretend that I meant to.
Similar to the first course, Advanced requires you to do Knowledge Reviews, but there is no final test. That's it, done.

After we all get our Advanced Open Water certification, then the classroom work begins with SDP - the science stuff.

SDP

SDP consists of 3 main modules.
Substrates, Invertebrates, and Fish

Substrates:
These are all the corals that we learn to identify. We don't go down to the species level because that would get ridiculous - and I'd probably quit - so we group them by family.
Without any prior experience, lots of these things look EXACTLY the same, which makes studying them infuriating. Since we only have to know them by sight, we study using flashcards and practice exams. Then we take a test which consists of 50 pictures and we have to identify each.
A 90% is required to pass, and I failed my first two exams.  Very disheartening. Then for my third attempt I mustered my strength, went into my suitcase and took a deep breath - because
some of the air from home might still be in there and the extra Freedom in it would jog my brain - and crushed the test with a 98%.

Inverts:
This one is about the other lifeforms that aren't fish or coral. Examples are: Sea Stars (Starfish to us non-nerds), urchins, sea slugs, etc.
These ones weren't as difficult to study because most of them are pretty distinct from each other. Starfish don't look like urchins, sea slugs don't look like Top Shells, and so forth.
While Inverts are a bit easier as far as testing goes, I have a much more difficult time spotting them in the water. Many of them can be quite small and like to hide in little crevices, or they just hide in plain sight and I miss them because I kinda suck.  


Fish:
Fish are cool and they are my favorite. They were by far the easiest for me to learn (except a few really tricky ones) and they are the coolest to identify underwater because they aren't boring.

Right off the bat, it jumps out at you that fish drew the short straw when it came to naming conventions. Everything is named by an animal or object that exists on land, with the word "fish" cleverly attached at the end. Very imaginitive.

• Lionfish
• Butterflyfish
• Frogfish
• Sea Snake (not a fish, but same idea)
• Whale Shark
• Trumpet Fish
• Needle Fish
• Angelfish
• Triggerfish
• Surgeonfish
• Sea Horse

You get the idea. Similar to the substrates, many of these fish look exactly the same to the untrained eye, which can be frustrating.
However, by the time it was time to take my fish test, my brain had adapted to the trickery and I
crushed the test on my first attempt.


Each unit has a computer test you have to pass, then two tests in the field to see if you can actually point stuff out. The field tests basically consist of you following the SDP leader and identifying things they point out. This can be tricky at times, and took me several attempts to pass.
(I secretly suspect that they just point at rocks and then make up whatever answer comes to their mind first.)
"Oh that's a calcified algae on a non acropora massive coral."
....Bullshit, that's a rock.

Eventually you pass all your tests and then feel good about yourself. Eventually.


How it all comes together. 

Once you have your necessary diving certifications and SDP completed, you participate in the surveys.
For a survey, we basically lay down a 50 meter line down on the ocean floor at 6 or 12 meters, and then we count the three categories we were trained to identify. Remember, it's Substrates, Inverts, and Fish. When we first go down, we lay the line out - a piece of string- and then come back and count all the inverts. This usually takes all of the 40 minutes allotted for this first dive, so then we surface and return to the boat.
Then we come back on our 2nd dive, and count the Fish and Substrates, then pack up and return to the surface.
In the evening when our surveying is done, we report our data to the Science Officer and they enter it into the database.

It may sound pretty simple and beg the question as to why we need all this scuba and science training. But once you get down there and see it for yourself, you realize it's all done for a reason.
Because we are counting stuff, writing numbers, and looking closely at certain objects, it really does require a bit of practice.
It's like taking notes in a classroom, except you're also making sure you aren't running into things, floating away, or running out of air. But, also like taking notes in a classroom, you settle into a routine and daydreaming can come into play. Then again, when do you ever get to take
notes while swimming 30 feet underwater with fish whizzing past your face in a classroom?


Additional Scuba Training:

This is the good stuff. The science stuff is cool - don't get me wrong, it makes me feel superior to the common man - but the scuba stuff tickles my fancy a bit more.

After completing the Science training, depending on how long you are staying, you begin your Rescue Diver training.

Rescue Training is basically first aid in the water, but with obvious differences - getting unconscious people to the surface, getting them to shore, giving rescue breaths in the water, etc.
We also had to learn how to deal with panicked divers - like lifeguards with panicked swimmers, except it's with scuba gear so it's cooler.

The culminating event of the Rescue Diver course is going on a stress dive, where our instructor and his assistant(s) take us on a dive and throw various situations/problems at us, such as:

• Pretending to be unconscious.
• Ripping off our masks.
• Turning off our air.
• Ripping off our masks and then turning off our air.
• Pretending to be out of air.
• Pretending to be a stupid new diver who is ascending to the surface really fast.
• Pretending to be out of air and then ascending to the surface really fast.

This dive was actually quite fun, because it ended up turning into an underwater wrestling match, and every person there is qualified to save
you if something goes wrong.

How NOT to lift an unconscious diver out of the water

Kieran trying to lasso me while I drown

I should have just made him jump in and come get me

Divemaster:

I know what you're thinking.
SWEET title, right?
The title alone is why I decided to pursue this level of certification. Master of the Dive.
MASTER!
I honestly had no idea what Divemaster meant in the scuba world, I just wanted to get the word Master in my title.

In reality, Divemaster (DM) is one level below scuba Instructor. Divemasters are basically assistant instructors who go along on dives and help students and keep an eye on everyone to make sure they don't do something studid.
DMs are not allowed to do course evaluations or skill validation, but they can assist and demonstrate.
(I can't train you, so don't ask.)
DMs are often used at dive shops/resorts to give tours of the local marine environment to other certified divers who are visiting the area.
You take them on a tour and show them points of interest, cool fish, potential hazards, etc.


Out of the water, DMs are in charge of:

Paperwork
Gear setup
Paperwork
Logistics
Paperwork
Dive Planning
Safety Equip-
Let's just call it what it is: bitch work.

Example of paperwork

You are basically the Dive Slave at whatever scuba operation you work for. You are relatively well qualified, which means you have JUST enough
responsibility for the managers and instructors to be able to offload all the work to you.
Kinda feels like the nurse/doctor relationship in family medicine. Nurse takes all your biometrics, documents all the stuff, Doctor comes in and tells you that you need X procedure done, and Nurse comes back and does the work.

Divemaster Training:

A Divemaster in training is referred to as a DMT - again, kinda cool. As a DMT, you go through quite a bit of training and tests, all of which is evaluated.
There are a number of skills you have to master, 24 of them, and all must be at demonstration level - meaning you can demonstrate them in an
exaggerated, near-perfect manner for new divers.
Examples:

• Regulator recovery
• Removing your BCD (all your gear) and putting it back on - on the surface and underwater.
• Hovering
• Removing your mask and putting it back on.
• Swimming without a mask.
• Emergency Ascent.
• The list goes on.

Each skill you do gets a rating from 1-5, where 1 means you suck, and 5 means you are proper good. Scoring a 3 is technically a pass, but it's not fantastic. Plus, my particular instructor refuses to accept 3s, so you gotta get a 4 to pass the skill. You can repeat the skills on subsequent dives, so each attempt is not a do-or-die event.
After completing all the skills, your total score needs to add up to some specific number in order to pass the DM requirements - I don't know the exact number, but that's irrelevant.


Hell Dives

In addition to the skills tests, DMTs also have to go through a few real or simulated exercises:
Like many things in life, we give them exaggerated names to try and spice up the sex appeal. Hell's Kitchen, Hell Week, Hell Run, Hell Dive... It's really just a bunch of people being dicks to you on purpose.

There are some standard services offered by most dive shops/resorts, and it is very common for Divemasters to participate in or lead them.

• Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) - This is a class for people who want to try scuba diving without committing to getting certified and stuff.
• Discover Local Diving (DLD) - This is for certified divers who are visiting a new area and would like a tour of the local dive site.
• Reactivate - This is for people who haven't been diving in a long time and need to get re-certified. They just prove they can do a few basic skills then they are done.

Divemasters have active roles in these services, so we get to practice running them.

The exercises listed above (DSD, DLD, Reactivate) are often simulated for DMT training. They are simulated by having instructors and other Divemasters act like customers/new divers, depending on the situation, and you take them through the course.

The term Hell Dive is used because it's a collection of really annoying dives, with people being dicks to you on purpose.
The idea is to get you used to the worst possible students by simulating these scenarios.

Keep in mind, for the Hell Dives, these are people who actually know what they are doing. Their sole purpose on the dive is to make your life difficult.
Your instructors-acting-like-terrible-god-awful-thickheaded-stubborn-moronic-students do their absolute best to mess with you and make your dive impossible to guide.
They pretty much act like American college students on spring break.

Examples of such antics:
They will set up their gear improperly and hope you don't notice.
They will act like they know everything and not listen to your instructions (because the customer is always right)
They will pretend they don't know English.
They will freak out underwater and start panicking.
They will try to TOUCH EVERYTHING.
They will all separate and swim in different directions, and ignore your calls for them to come back.
They will try to take their gear off.
They will try to take your gear off.
If you do not specifically mention "NO FOOD" in your pre-dive briefing, they will pull out a chocolate bar in the middle of the dive and share it amongst themselves. This one is particularly humiliating, but also very funny.


You get the idea.
All those things happened to me. And more.

It's basically a couple instructors venting their frustration out on you for all the terrible things their real life students have done to them in the past. They claim that everything they do to you has been done to them at some point in their career, which supposedly makes it fair.
Instructors love these dives, because they get to act ridiculous.
Students fear these dives, because instructors get to act ridiculous.


The good news is, you can't fail these exercises. You put up with the childish behavior, do your best to control the dive, and know it will all be over in 30 minutes. Afterward it's all laughs and jokes, as instructors giggle about their antics and the DMT tries to regain their sanity.

It's actually pretty good practice for being under stress and having to deal with it while staying professional. The idea is that once you've seen the worst that can happen, you'll be able to deal with anything else that comes along.
In all, it's not actually that bad. Just relax, embrace the ridiculous antics, refrain from drowning anyone, and enjoy it.


Besides the 24 skills, Hell Dives, a swim test (kinda hard), some more Search and Rescue stuff, and skimming every chapter of the book, there's one big test at the end. I haven't taken it yet, so I can't speak to it yet. Will update upon completion. If I pass.





Scuba diving is really just cheating fate so we can go somewhere we aren't designed to go. It's pretty sweet. Besides the obvious issue of oxygen, there are a host of other potential hazards that are just asking to kill you.
Did you know that too much oxygen can kill you? Or that holding your breath while diving can burst your lungs?
If you go beyond 30 meters you can get narcosis and stop caring about your safety, and do something silly like drop your regulator or break into a seizure.
Fortunately, if you follow all the rules and don't act like a complete dumbass, these things don't happen and you get to cheat Nature for hours on end. Suck it, Nature.


This post is exceptionally long, and may be a bit dry. It probably reflects how busy I've been recently. If you read this far, I applaud you.

Thanks as always for reading.

Hogs Wild