As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we’re done with Open Water Scuba Instructor (OWSI) training, and we’ve also finished Master Scuba Diver Trainer (MSDT) training, and we are now in the final part of our training, a program called Resort Operation Specialist (ROS). ROS is designed to give us some practical experience and teach us some of the skills that employers look for in newly trained dive employees (other than the basic diving skills which we have already acquired). These include skills relating to fish/creature/coral identification, gas blending (for nitrox), tank inspection, and piloting a dive boat. We also get to intern aboard the ProDiver II, our school’s dive boat. Today it was Andrea’s and my turn to work as interns on the boat.
Every morning the ProDiver II goes out on a snorkeling trip. We’re usually in class in the mornings, so I’ve never gone before — today was my first snorkeling trip. It was fun and interesting, and Andrea particularly enjoyed it. She had a great experience helping out a woman who didn’t know how to swim and was a bit afraid of being in the water. By the end of the trip the woman was zipping around in the ocean (with the help of a life preserver), and was searching out Andrea on the dive boat to take a picture with her. I observed the snorkelers from the deck of the boat, ready to put my rescue skills to use if need be (fortunately, the need did not arise).
The afternoon trip on the ProDiver II is for the scuba divers, and we are very familiar with it. Today we got to see it from the other side. We helped prepare the boat for the trip, assisted the sport divers with their gear, and helped with boat operations. But the highlight of the afternoon trip was dive-bombing the wreck.
A typical dive trip is a “two tank” dive, meaning you dive on two sites, one tank each (two tanks total for the trip). In Fort Lauderdale, these dives are typically a wreck (usually on the deeper side), followed by a shallower reef dive (at one of Fort Lauderdale’s 30′ reefs). On the wreck dives, the boat has to attach to the wreck, and it can’t just drop anchor without potentially damaging the wreck. Also, there is often strong current in the ocean, so divers need a descent/ascent line to help them get safely down to and up from the wreck. So to solve the problem, one of the divemasters on the boat will “dive-bomb” the wreck, jumping in with a line as the boat passes over, swimming down to the bottom, tying the boat off to the wreck, and then swimming back up, all before any other diver gets into the water. It doesn’t sound particularly difficult as I type it, but when you see it in action it is a bit more complicated. The diver jumps in the water at the exact cue from the captain, and if he is a little off, or if there is even a little current, it is very easy to miss the wreck entirely. Because of this, it’s important to swim as hard and fast as you can to get to the bottom without letting the current move you. Again, this doesn’t sound tough, but divers know that you need to equalize your ears as you descend or you can pop an eardrum, and because of this most divers descend slowly, equalizing often. A dive-bomber also has to equalize often, but doesn’t have the luxury of the slow descent. As a final problem, visibility in the ocean can be quite poor, making it hard to see the wreck as you swim to it (and it is especially hard if the current gets hold of you and moves you away from the wreck).
Today’s wreck dive was at a site called Tenneco Towers, which sits in 110′ of water. Both Andrea and I were chosen to dive-bomb the wreck along with a divemaster on the boat named Steve. As we got close to the site, the three of us stood on the back platform of the boat as it sped through the ocean. It slowed up a bit as we got close, and on the captain’s signal, the three of us dove from the platform head-first in a mad race to the bottom. Steve (the divemaster) was carrying the rope, and he jumped off the starboard side of the platform, Andrea jumped off the middle, and I jumped from the port side. This meant that instead of swimming straight down I actually had to swim at an angle a little greater than 180 degrees to find Steve and the line. Andrea had it a little easier, but diving from the middle of the platform had its own concerns, as she had to dive off between the boat’s two ladders, which were bouncing in the water as we moved along. Despite these minor obstacles, we both dove in and made it down as fast as we can, which it turns out was still about 15-20 seconds behind Steve. Yet it was still about ten times faster than any other descent I’ve made. After tying off, we had to then race back to the surface with our dive computers going crazy (as we were ignoring conventional wisdom regarding slow ascent rates) in order to brief the sport divers on the conditions underwater. In total, we went 110′ down and another 110′ back up in under THREE minutes. And they were three of the more exciting minutes of diving that I’ve experienced!
The down-side of dive-bombing the wreck is that you can’t participate in the dive — you need to take a surface interval. So instead we acted as “dry divemasters,” helping people on and off the boat, keeping an eye out for trouble at the surface. And once all of the sport divers were done, we did a semi-dive bomb back down to unhook from the wreck. This one was not as frantic of a pace, but it was still very lively and very fun.
On the second dive we actually took a pleasure dive, since there wasn’t much to be done in terms of assisting the crew, and they were kind enough to let us enjoy it rather than make us sit on the boat for an hour doing nothing. It turned out to be a great dive, as there were tons of fish and unique marine life, including a stonefish, a stingray, a spotted eel and tons of lobster.
Since returning home Andrea and I have both been raving about how much we enjoyed working with the boat crew today. The crew and the captain are all first class, and they were a pleasure to work with. But we really enjoyed being on the working end of the dive operation. And of course, that is good news considering that we’re going to try to make a living at this. 