Ok, I'm back! I'm ready to write my trip report.
First off, let me say how privileged I feel to be able to have spent time at University of Alaska's/NOAA's Kasitsna Bay Laboratory facility. Wow. What an amazing place in a really beautiful part of the world.
I had some issues with how the course was being run up to the field week at the lab (actually 9 days). I felt the pool sessions were over-crowded with not enough time for asking questions. This changed quite a bit once down in the field. For starters, there were 3 instructors:
1) Brenda Konar, professor at UAF and AAUS instructor
2) Mitch Osborne, AAUS instructor and LDS owner (lent students gear and drysuits at no cost)
3) Rob Robbins, AAUS instructor and super cool dude who dives in Antarctica. I think he runs the AAUS program down there. Konar has been down there with him a bunch. Amazing man.
So we were in good hands with 3 great instructors, and the big ocean is a whole lot bigger than the 3 lanes of community pool we were confined to.
Every day there were 2-4 dives depending on where you were in the course. Everyone had 2 the first day, and then the 2nd day you could add a 3rd "fun" dive for practicing skills. Once you passed your u/w nav skill, you were allowed to go for night dives, making 4 dives a day possible. Thirty ft was the limit for every day, though I know that some students found themselves at 35 ft, and just didn't tell the instructors about it.
Once you had finished all the drysuit skills and AAUS skills, you were allowed to help 2nd yr students with their research projects, so some people got practice with sampling, others with setting transects, others with mapping, etc. It depended on where you were with your own skills and who needed what help. We were encouraged to go at our own pace, and to practice skills as long as we needed to.
On Wednesday, we had Rescue Day for the entire day, so in the morning we were paired up, and then had to rescue our buddy and get him/her into a boat while everyone screamed and cheered. Of course, the smallest women were paired with the biggest guys. It was great fun and exciting to see what we were capable of. We took a break for lunch, and then in the afternoon we swam out to 20 ft and practiced rescuing an unconscious diver at the bottom - one of the instructors descended with us and made sure we did everything right (check to see if ok, check for buoyancy, simulated removal of weights, safely get victim to surface, inflate BC, and then ABCDE checklist), then we had to swim 75m or so to shore towing victim while giving rescue breaths and ditching gear (TA swam along with us telling us if we did anything wrong and giving encouragement. That was exhausting). Then we got to carry victim on beach, and simulate O2 administration (there were 2 stations), and Rob Robbins or Brenda Konar would tell us the scenario - unconscious victim, not breathing, or unconscious and breathing - to see if we knew which mask to use, then s/he would change the scenario. Sometimes they'd drag over another student to be a bystander to test if we knew what to do with an extra set of hands. It was great - really physically difficult (the towing part w/ rescue breaths) and very rewarding. There was a night dive for those who were up for it.
Overall the class was excellent and rewarding, and I think we all realized we were in the very capable hands of some truly excellent instructors. I had some pretty annoying drysuit issues which slowed me down. I flooded every single time, and I got pretty upset about it. I'm apparently an odd shaped person, and there wasn't a suit available that fit me right, and if I wanted to be warm and wear an undergarment, then I needed to wear a suit that was too big, which means water in the neck seal despite rubber tubing. I was pretty annoyed that it was acceptable that I got so wet/cold in 34F water, but annoyed at no one, as it was no one's fault, really. I also had some weighting issues due to switching to different drysuits and underwear layers throughout the week, so I felt like I spent the week in a drysuit course more than a scientific diver course. I passed everything, but I did for sure wish they had gear that fit me properly and didn't flood. I would have liked to do more dives than I did, but since my undergarments soaked to the skin every time, I had to waste valuable time drying my kit instead of diving. Kind of a bummer. We had to do 12 dives for the course, and i did about 15, but other students did 21 or 22, and I was bummed I missed out on that experience, but I sure did learn a lot about drysuits! I'm sure now that I've gotten better at managing buoyance with a drysuit I'll be an even better diver when I hit the warm water again!
Truly, the course is diving for scientists, not science for divers, and that was a major misunderstanding on my part going into this. I'm not disappointed, though. I'd have paid a similar amt to get my drysuit cert (ok, a little less, but not a whole lot), and I got to dive with some really great instructors, so it was well worth it. I did want to learn some sampling techniques as I'm not a scientist but I do some research diving for a scientist, but I think that this is something I can read up on. I know how to set a transect, and I learned some other cool stuff, too.
If anyone has any specific questions, I'm certainly happy to answer them!
it seems like it will be a lot of work but also very rewarding. my class isn't until mid june but i'll be sure to post afterward about my experiences.
