It looked good on paper

[Ber Rabbit]

I've spent spring quarter at the university teaching an advanced class and last weekend was the third and final dive weekend for the students. The previous weekend the class had been setting up navigation courses then trading information and trying to find the buoys set by the other team. The students learned a lot but at the end of weekend #2 I still had some doubts about their navigation abilities so the first dive on the final weekend would be a straightforward navigation exercise.

I spent a whole week trying to figure out how to design a navigation exercise in Gilboa Quarry that would force them to compass navigate rather than follow landmarks. I decided to use 20oz soda bottles as targets so I drank 3 Cokes and a co-worker drank 3 Diet 7-Up's early in the week so I could have three clear and three green bottles.

I told the class what they would be looking for and they asked if I could put glow sticks in them to make them more visible...ummm, ok...not sure how well that will work in green water but hey, I'm experimenting. I decided to tie two pieces of surveyors tape to the neck of each bottle as well, one green piece and an orange piece. I figured if the glow sticks didn't make the bottles easier to spot the fluorescent tails would. Now I needed a way to determine whether or not the students had actually found the bottles.

I remembered that my instructor had gotten some colored key tags a couple years ago to use for her navigation course so I borrowed those and started pondering how to attach them to the bottles. I decided to zip tie a 1" binder ring to the neck of the bottle and clip the key tags to that then tie the mooring string to the binder ring and tape it in place so it couldn't slide off when the ring was opened. I was pretty proud of my little creations I put a piece of white electrical tape around the bottom of each bottle and wrote the university name and "Target #___" on the tape so other divers would not mess with them. I also put a little piece of tape on each tag and numbered them to match the bottle they were attached to. The next step was to figure out how to get them to the bottom of the quarry and tied off.

When we were decorating for the pumpkin carving in October I learned it's a bad idea to hold the strings of a bunch of buoyant objects in one hand while you are swimming; you get a gigantic knot that can't be undone. Not wanting to make THAT mistake again I decided to wrap the strings around the bottles and put the bottles into a mesh bag for ease of transport. I even had the foresight to put the numbered bottles into the bag in reverse order so bottle #1 would be close to the opening with bottle #6 near the bottom of the bag. I figured the bag would be inverted and we could simply reach up into it and remove the bottle we needed...it looked good on paper!

End Part I (stay tuned for more)

 

[Steve R]

Hi Ber, while I await your 2nd part, and not knowing exactly what you're getting at yet.....

As you know I was at the quarry on the weekend, and as much as I really don't care to observe any course I am not involved in as it's none of my business, I'm sure you understand that just by being there I had a chance to converse top side with a couple of your students socially and happend to hear a thing or two from their perspective, as well as see a bit of your underwater nav course. Not much really, and nothing in detail as we were doing our own thing. Other than being aware of any wheels coming off underwater with other teams, knowing as well they're newer divers I generally don't bother much. I happened to see our top-side divers in the water navigating, so I stuck around for a bit just to be sure they were OK, as I hate to have to have pulled another body out of the quarry, especially people I had fun with over the two days. Call it the mother-hen instinct.

Anyway......

to the AOW course.....

I know typically these specific dives (Nav, deep etc) seem to be segregated, and it turns often to "This is the Nav dive, on this dive we will do....."

That's OK, I think we all do that as well, but I find all other 'gradeable" skills are most often left and dispensed with at the expense of the navigation and gaining of the flags/tags/bottles/stickers etc alone.

I also am there at every turn in every dive watching the teams over-all performance at all times, which includes on every single dive, the dive plan, gas management, time management, proper buoyancy trim and propulsion at every point regardless of task, team awareness, problem recognition (Like when they've missed the point they were to navigate to..now what?, now you have to sort it out underwater and realize you should have had a plan for that top-side) communication, team formation, task mangement and how that affects the individual divers task and how that can change during the dive depending on who's doing what, and on and on. Basically teaching them what most rarely learn, which is how every dive should be run.

After being told for the tenth time in 3 dives your team formation and communication suck (and how to remedy it) they tend to wise-up and instantly start making visible and positive corrections. Visible because I am there to see it, and positive beacuse I can see they're starting to become actual thinking divers.

I guess what I am saying is I think AOW should be a complete experience on every dive, instead of piece mealing each component at the expense of pretty much all else, and if I am not there to see HOW they obtain the flags during the nav course, it tells me nothing else other than they managed it somehow and they didn't die doing it.

If there was a specialty card called "Screwing your head on straight", I would probably teach that one exclusively to all my AOW students, as that's what they need to learn most.

OK, that was tongue in cheek, and really, I disregard most of the typical 'suggestions' from agency material because I am positive I know what the students need, and it really isn't what I normally see in these courses.

What I am saying in so many words is, I test all required material all the time so there is no one nav dive (for example), they get tested on it on as many dives as I can, along with everything else that is entailed in a well constructed dive plan.

Also just to reassure you, my comment has nothing to do with your Nav course because I do not know how it was done, my comment was directed more for the entire AOW course in general as well as how things look on paper vs. their real value in actual training, and may not at all be what you were looking for here.

Steve

EDIT: More spelling

 

[Doc]

Not wanting to make THAT mistake again I decided to wrap the strings around the bottles and put the bottles into a mesh bag

That didn't work either. Been there, done that, tried it.

The best way to do this is to put a small loop in the bottom of each bottle's string. Then with a carabiner that also has a sufficient negative weight tied to it, hook the looped strings of the bottles onto it. They are very easy to slip loose and "untangle" one as needed.

Bottles, such as 2 liter Pepsi bottles, surprisingly only need about 1/2" of air in them to make them sufficiently buoyant.

You don't have to get fancy. Stuff a bit of string or monofilament into the bottle, screw the top back on. (I suppose you could knot the end inside). Tie the loop on the bottom and voila- instant marker buoy.

If bottles remain for years, little critters living growing in the trapped water inside of the bottles exude enough gas to make the things fill up and push the water out- making their buoyancy possibly exceed that of your weighting system.

We have adapted this nickel and dime process to use as a "field expedient" for island fire department divers trained in third world countries who have been given the basics of "what to do before the NTSB arrives" in the event of an "air/sea aircraft interface".

How did I get this experience? For those of you who have been to Roatan's CoCoView... you know those 100 pop bottles that dot the chain from the shore out to the wreck? That was me and "Herself" what done that.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

I wander down to the dock to get some general headings for my course and I write these on my wrist slate. I figure if my surface readings aren't working out I can always change the heading and write the new one on my slate underwater. I take two long pieces of surveyors tape, one green and one orange, and knot them together. We will tie this marker to a tree near the entry point to use as our starting point for the course; I stuff the starting marker into the bag with the targets and my DM, Barry, and I head for the water. We decide I will carry the bag and count kick cycles and he will navigate. The students follow us down to the dock and after we get into the water one of them hands me the bag of buoys. I pull the starting marker out, choose a tree to use for a starting point and send Barry down to tie the marker while I deal with the bag's buoyancy issue I've just discovered. I send a student to my car with instructions to bring one large and one smaller weight because this bag isn't going to sink without some lead. I have the glow sticks in the bottles so I can't easily fill them with water without having to chase glow sticks all over the place. My student hands me a 3lb weight and that's nowhere near the lead I'm going to need to sink this beast. She takes the 3lb back and hands me a 5lb hunk of lead, still no go; I'm going to have to use both pieces. I have her run the drawstring of the bag through the slits in the lead and re-attach the double-ended bolt snap to keep them from sliding off. Barry has been back for quite some time by now, I give him our first heading and we descend to the starting point. The bag is still fairly buoyant but I'm able to wrestle it under knowing things will get better as we get the bottles placed.

Barry sets the heading and I cruise beside him counting kick cycles. I was intending a 50 kick cycle leg which should have taken us over near the tubes to plant the first target. We were right on course but after about 15 kick cycles I suddenly realized how much I had come to rely on the frog kick lately and how freaking TIRING it was to flutter kick. There was no way I was going to make 50 kick cycles dragging this stupid bag to the first stop then run 5 more legs...I stop counting at 24 kick cycles and pick a tree in about 17 feet of water as a potential tie off. We swim a little farther and see the drop off that SHOULD go to the tubes but when I look over the edge all I see is black. Now I'm not sure where we are because the deep end should not be right here it should be a little farther out. I say "forget the tubes" and motion to Barry to head back the way we had come. I stop at the tree I had picked and write the buoy depth on my slate...the pencil breaks and I don't have time to sharpen the freaking thing underwater. I'm going to have to stick with my planned headings and hope they are correct plus I'm going to have to remember the depths and kick cycles to all points. I decide to keep all my kick cycles between 25 and 30 to make memorizing the distance easier. Happy with my resolution of the current problem I attempt to open the bag to remove buoy #1.

I can't get the bag open, can't even wiggle a finger into the opening! The 8lbs of lead tied to the drawstring has the bag tied up tight. I try lifting the weights to take the pressure off but that just causes the buoys to float away and put the pressure back on the drawstring. Barry and I work together to try to get the bag opened, we tried EVERYTHING. I manage to get my finger into the bag while he's holding the weight then I slip my hand in and grab the bottle...SUCCESS! Barry accidentally drops the weight and the drawstring closes tight on my wrist. CRAP! I experience a fleeting moment of panic when I realize I'm trapped, this buoyant thing is firmly attached to me and I'm not sure how I'm going to get my hand out plus I'm afraid it will drag me to the surface. Barry and I fight the buoyant bag monster for several minutes and manage to free my hand as well as the bottle I'm clutching. I'm excited to see my hand (and the bottle) coming out of the bag...we had a rough start but this plan may actually work! Riiiiiiight. The bottle comes out of the bag but the binder ring hooks on the mesh and opens, I watch the yellow key tag come off and come toward me but I can't see where it's going and I can't feel it while wearing the dry gloves. Barry doesn't see it come off so he has no clue what my crazy hand signals are indicating. While trying to signal Barry and keep the other key tag from coming off the binder ring I manage to pull the binder ring out from under the zip tie (insert colorful language here). I motion "up" and we head to the surface for a chat since I no longer have use of the slate.

Ok, maybe it was more of a gripe session than a chat; we're both a little aggravated at that stupid bag. We hatch a plan that happens to include finding a yellow key tag in 4 inch grass that happens to be, well, yellow and it's growing in silt that happens to look you guessed it, yellow. Why couldn't the BLUE tag have fallen off? I manage to re-hook the binder ring under the zip tie while searching for the yellow tag. I've given up any hope of finding it when Barry taps me and holds up the tag WOOHOO! Back in business! I attach the tag to the ring and carefully tie the buoy to the tree. While we managed to stay off the bottom the whole time we had shaken just about every last ounce of silt off of the tree while trying to use it to support the weights. The silt cloud wasn't bad, but it did leave a haze in the immediate vicinity of the tree. Luckily I could easily see the tails attached to the bottle so the students should have no trouble finding the first target.

I'm relieved to get that over with. One down, 5 to go...it's been 23 minutes since we started.

End part II (stay tuned for more)

 

[Guba]

If it's not going to be a permanent nav course, you might try something like this in the future...

It's made from those "bang stix" you get at some sporting events. I simply make a primitive harness for it, attach a length of cord on a spool, and rubber band the whole thing together. If you wanted to attach tags, punch holes in a four-in length of plastic tape (like police tape or surveyer's tape, with corresponding numbers, etc...for the nav course), run a zip tie through the holes and zip them to the loop on the marker.
Each one only takes up a small space in a bag or pocket. Deploying is easy. Tie off the end before inflating, then simply blow an appropriate amount of air into the tube. Only a puff is necessary or you can modify the opening to accept your octo.
We've set up courses and treasure hunts with these and they work surprisingly well while avoiding the problems you experienced. Collecting them at the end is also easy. Since they're cheap and simple to make, one can just stab them with a pointed instrument, wad them up and stow them in a pocket or bag for later disposal. (You can deflate them and keep them if you want, but that's a hassle underwater.)

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Better believe it can! Somebody related to Murphy has to have some sort of corrollary dealing with this sort of thing. When a dive starts off being aggravating the level of aggravation can only increase through the course of the dive.

I signal the next heading to Barry and we head off, a short distance away on the other side of a small valley we run into a small wall. There's a nice place to tie off so even though it's a short run I decide to go ahead and tie the next buoy here. Barry rests the weights on the top of the ledge and gets his hand into the bag but can't find buoy #2. I'm helping him look and I see every number but the one I want, it SHOULD have been close to the opening but seems to have migrated elsewhere. I signal that he should pull out ANY target so we can get this course set before we run out of air. He grabs one and pulls but it won't come out, the key tag clip is hooked through the mesh...somewhere. We are both wrestling with the bag, it WAS open but NONE of the buoys would come out. Now the bag is all twisted up and the clips are grabbing mesh in various areas making it impossible to get any of them free. My DM is cursing loudly now and I'm starting to wonder if he's thinking it might be easier to just beat me to death with the stupid bag and be done with it. I can actually SEE how P.O.'d he's getting. He finally manages to yank one out and I grab it and head down to tie it off while he removes a second one that had come part way out of the bag when he removed the first.

I give him the next heading and we start off but he's going the wrong way. I check my compass and he's definitely not going 90 degrees, I check the heading he's following and it's 100 degrees. Huh? I catch him and motion to return to the starting point where I give him the heading a second time. He heads off in the same direction as before...what the? I bring him back again and indicate I will navigate now and hand him that stupid bag. We head off and come to the platform that is between the plane and the tubes. I motion to him that I'm going to drop to 40 feet and tie the buoy on a stubby tree. He sets the weights down on the platform and starts working on getting the next buoy out. I drop to my intended tie off point and the cold water below the thermocline seems to punch me. DAGGONE it was cold down there and I was only at 40 feet. "The students, who are in wetsuits, are going to be hating the deep dive tomorrow" is what crosses my mind. I find my chosen tree stump is not really suitable so I move to another potential stubby tree. I tie my knot and let go of the string; the knot promptly comes undone and that stupid target goes for the surface like a Polaris Missile (insert expletive that begins with "S" here). I slowly ascend after the runaway bottle, it's hard to see where it's going because my bubbles keep obscuring and MOVING it...GRRRR! Barry wasn't looking at me when I passed him on the platform, he was fighting to get a bottle out of the bag so I hadn't signalled that I was leaving and would be right back. I grab the bottle and start back down and see Barry looking around for me. I drop as quickly as I can clear my ears and he finally sees me coming toward him. I signal that the bottle had gone to the surface and I'm going to tie the stupid thing off and we'll move on to the next point. He signals that he's low on air but since we're at safety stop depth I figure we'll be able to get done because we don't have far to go. I tie the bottle off and join Barry on the platform where he hands me the next target.

I use my next heading and we end up near the tail of the plane so I decide I'll tie the bottle to the steering wheel of the boat that's almost directly under the tail. We are cruising at 20 feet and only few feet from my intended tie off when Barry signals 500psi (Damn, SO close!). I signal that I'm going to place the last bottle then we will go up. I turn and hustle the last couple kicks to the tie off point, drop to depth and get the target in place. I turn to signal Barry that we're going up now and he's GONE (insert strong expletive here). I'm back at 20 feet and looking desperately for my buddy who's getting too close to OOA for my comfort. I look up figuring he probably ascended but I don't see him ANYWHERE (several expletives) and horrible scenarios start running through my head. "What if he had a heart attack?", "What if he is unconscious for some reason?" "I've killed my buddy!" I was working on flipping out! My friend was on the white platform with his students and I was just about to eat crow and ask him to help me find my buddy when I rolled over one more time and saw a diver in the haze that was the surface above me. I cannot express how happy I was to spot that stupid bag that still held 2 targets in that diver's hand! I made my ascent and asked what happened and he said he thought I told him to go ahead and ascend and I would be there in a minute. We hung out in the water for a while expressing the frustration with the whole project. He said, "This dive was a great way to p**s a DM off that's for sure!"

I guess the whole point of the story is more about what I learned rather than what the students would be expected to do. They had experienced their fair share of problem solving dives the last couple of weekends while dealing with sometimes uncooperative and often heavy "props". I know I saw improvement in their skills both above water and underwater and I was pleased to see them growing as teams through the 13 dives they did for the class. Are they perfect? No, neither am I but they are growing as divers as I am and I would trust any of them with my own life. AOW is such a short class and I tend to push them hard the first couple of weekends. They have one fun dive then the challenging dives begin, the projects are designed to be a bit frustrating to help them learn to plan their dives completely among other things. I wish I had varied environments to increase their experience envelope but I don't so I work within the confines of the $125 lab fee the university charges. The Gilboa weekend had some work aspects but for the most part I use that weekend to make sure they leave my class having a good time...hence the funky entries and allowing them to experiment with some of their own ideas once the requirements for the class had been satisfied.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Steve R]

yep, you zigged, I zagged, as I was afraid of.

I thought you were headed towards the student instruction aspect, instead your real intent was the joys of the instructors setting up the course.

Personally, that's way too much work, but I'm an old tired guy

 

[Ber Rabbit]

yep, you zigged, I zagged, as I was afraid of.

I thought you were headed towards the student instruction aspect, instead your real intent was the joys of the instructors setting up the course.

Personally, that's way too much work, but I'm an old tired guy

Damn rabbits...always moving erratically

That's the reason I have them set up their own courses then they have to brief the other team on how to run it the weekend we go to White Star. There were so many issues with that exercise this time that I wouldn't know where to start describing them. They learned A LOT through their mistakes, probably more than they would have learned had the exercise gone well. I wanted to check to be sure they knew how to use a compass though, I figured they were fine navigating but wanted confirmation. This is the first time I've had to set up a course for an AOW class
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Teamcasa]

Damn rabbits...always moving erratically

... I wanted to check to be sure they knew how to use a compass though, I figured they were fine navigating but wanted confirmation. This is the first time I've had to set up a course for and AOW class
Ber :lilbunny:

A long time ago - in a land far away, I was asked to setup a compass course for the local Boy Scout troop. Instead of me setting the course, I asked the Scouts if they would help me set the course. All the time knowing full well they would learn more about it setting it up and testing it than they would have just by following it. When they finally finished and we went though it together they asked who was going to use the course? I told them the students have already used it and passed with flying colors! They loved it!

Dave

 

[Steve R]

A long time ago - in a land far away, I was asked to setup a compass course for the local Boy Scout troop. Instead of me setting the course, I asked the Scouts if they would help me set the course. All the time knowing full well they would learn more about it setting it up and testing it than they would have just by following it. When they finally finished and we went though it together they asked who was going to use the course? I told them the students have already used it and passed with flying colors! They loved it!

Dave

Bingo.


In Gilboa this would play out roughly as having them map the quarry items, get back on shore and during the SI put it on paper with guesstimated distances and their measured headings......the next dives would be to prove out the map by taking it and measuring the heading and approx distances of items not measured on the first dives to see how close they are.........

IE: You have four points measured in a box design. You know A-B, B-C, C-D, D-A.

What should the heading and distance be from A to C given your map? Now prove it out.

They learn way more because they're doing the work, and you do a crap load less of, if I may say so, pointless work.

That's about 5 minutes of planning off the top of my head. Give me 15 more minutes and I'd actually come up with something better.

Gilboa has way more potential for AOW training than I have anywhere in my parts for hours AFAIC.

On land I've done this with my (at the time) 10 year old son for cub scouts. We had a blast.

It's also not all that different than what we learned in cave classes.

EDIT: Spellin'