South Brohard Beach Friday 29 September 2008

WOW! How is that for a start. The water was an even 80 degrees and the VIZ was 15+ tons of fish the blocks are a huge hit for the fish. Silly me poking around and picking up huge shells woke a sleeping scorpion fish! I about jumped out of my wetsuit... Great dive. See ya soon.
Carl

Task Loading?

Hey all - so over the weekend, I ran a number of charters for shark's teeth and worked on some Advanced Open Water and Wreck classes. So, the news from the boneyard was good. 6 meg teeth, the largest one was 5". Viz was okay, not great, about 5 to 8 feet. Viz at Silvertooth was better with almost 15 to 20 feet on Sunday morning with 10 to 15 in the afternoon. Water conditions all through the weekend were great, with almost no chop at all within a couple of miles of shore.

As part of the courses I was teaching this weekend, we had a good discussion about task loading and diving. Two great examples of what I mean by task loading are when somebody uses the compass and starts swimming, but instead of holding their depth, they begin to ascend without even knowing it. Another great example is when a diver is working with a wreck reel, their air consumption goes up dramatically. Task loading is something that every diver faces on every dive and in extreme cases, the diver who becomes over loaded under the water will begin to ignore some of the more important aspects of diving. As divers become more comfortable, first with the safety aspects of diving and second with how their gear works, they can take on more complex tasks like underwater navigation or wreck reel use.

I see a number of divers that have issues with task loading with equipment. This most often occurs when a diver rents gear for the first time and is not used to how the regulator and BCD will end up in the water and they find themselves fumbling for an inflator or a computer. Combine new gear with a small problem like a fin that is not correctly secured and you may overload a lot of divers who will ignore of get into a position that they shouldn't be in.

How do we prevent this?

• Practice, practice, practice. Best when you start with an instructor that can give you lots of shortcuts and practical ways of doing things underwater like navigation or reel use, but even after you finish a class, get out there and practice. Build the muscle memory so you don't have to really think to do a task.
• Gear. Can you find your way around your gear without looking? Are you comfortable enough that you could quickly respond to a rapid ascent? Is your safety sausage becoming tangled around your octopus? Getting comfortable in your own gear is the first major way to reduce task loading underwater in new divers.
• Stop, breath, think and act. This is the real "golden rule" of diving. Solve those small problems quickly. Fin not fitting right? Stop and fix the problem right then and there. Do what it takes to fix the issue so when something else comes up, you don't get overloaded by two problems and forget to take care of the other things that you need to do.

Greg

Carbs Rule!!!

Surf was down and VIZ was up!!! Training, discovery and sightseeing were the words for the day. The big blocks at South Brohard Park are alive and well. Greg and Steve saw a spotted eagle ray and Bryant found a huge section of Mastadon Tusk!!! WOW! Everyone had a great time. We will see you next month for the Donut Dive.

Thank you for all of the fun.
Carl

Open Water Class - South Brohard

Wow! Dove South Brohard today with a great student. The blocks are really attracting a lot of growth. I was wondering what they were going to look like after the storm, but when I got to the first set, I was greeted by a large bait ball. A ton of juvenile Butterflies, Banded Porkfish, Sheepsheads and random Gulf fish.

Viz ran from 12' in shallow water to about 6-8' a little deeper out with string algae blooming. Looks like things are improving nicely. This is a great spot to dive if you haven't in a while. Lots of growth on the blocks and the storms turned up some nice teeth and fossils. Look for Carl's post on a great donut dive today. Greg

Blue Grotto

Saturday the VIZ at Blue Grotto was 200 ft... that was until it got busy, busy, busy... then it was about 100 ft. Well since the gulf conditions were down we made the trek to the Grotto for open water class. Congratulations to Kathy for completing her Open Water certification! There were at least 50 other divers there training and diving. It makes me appreciate the wide open Gulf.
Keep Diving!
Carl

Service Club Beach Report

Monday was very nice at Service Club Park, the waves were gone and the wind was from the East. VIZ was between 5 to 10 feet. We went in about two hundred yards north of the park and swam NW. We found some nice teeth and had a wonderful 75 min. dive. As always the grunts were very curious. I also found a pair of red octopi!! They were hiding under a rock and were about one inch in diameter. Very Cool!! Good Diving, Carl.

Ah Hah!

Have you seen the white float in the middle of Silvertooth. Got to dive it today (viz was 6-15 feet and water was flat). They are dumping new rocks in the area. Did not know there was still activity. Large new chunks of rocks all around the float. We should see some really great growth in the next couple of months.

The afternoon, we were at Service Club for a rescue class session. Good day to practice rescue - conditions were slight surface chop and surface current moving south. Typical weather for somebody to get into trouble. Viz was 10-12' and dive conditions under the surface were great. We've got one more good diveable day tomorrow and we're headed out on a shark toothing charter. After that it looks like Ike will have us out of the water for a couple of days. Greg

Venice Beach Report

Quick note - made it back from Venice and the pool. Viz wasn't great, about 4 feet over the sand and then down to about a foot or so over the fossil beds. Got a report that the viz was opening up as the day went on and was about 5 feet over the fossil beds. Great day to dive - no surf, surge or current. Greg

Safety and Experience in Diving

Hi all - so I was having a discussion the other day with a student and we both agreed that as a diver builds experience, safety takes a backseat to getting in the water. The conversation was prompted by an experience we saw on a boat where the diver (who had a LOT of experience) strided off the boat without letting the divemaster check his gear out. He basically said "I'm okay" and jumped.
The diver jumped in the water without his air on and without much air in his BCD. Although he was able to stay afloat at the surface, it could have been a disaster. In talking with the divemaster afterward, she said that it surprised her that he just walked past and jumped off the boat and she had gotten ready to dive in and bring him back to the surface. Digressing slightly, this is a great divemaster in action, but unless you watched closely at what happened, you never would have known there was an issue (this is why divemasters deserve those tips).

Once the diver realized the issue, he came back to the boat, Divemaster was able to turn his air on and the diver was able to inflate and head out on the dive with the group.

In discussing this, we figured that we see this a lot, missing pre-dive safety checks. And to be honest, both of us have done something like this before, been happy not to get hurt and used it as an object lesson moving forward.

There is a balance to strike with something like a pre-dive safety check, it can be both fast and thorough. I know my buddies gear, I know what problems to watch out for and I know how to do a buddy check. On the cattle boat in the Keys, with my rent-a-buddy, it is going to take longer, but then at the same time I don't want to have gear issues with my buddy that either slow down my dive or make it so I have to rescue my buddy. That extra one to two minutes is pretty good insurance. Greg

TANKS TO TRAILS

This week, volunteer divers will link four artificial reefs with an underwater trail using 140 reef balls. Several years ago, the county obtained five Army-surplus tanks (M-60 armored fighting vehicles to you war buffs) and sank them 13 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico to create the M-8 artificial reef in 65 feet of water. Before making their last "deployment," the tanks were scrubbed clean of pollutants by the local Army National Guard as part of its annual training, according to Sarasota County's Mike Sollum. With hatches welded open, the tanks became a wonderful habitat for marine animals. Using a $60,000 grant from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, and authorization from the Army Corps of Engineers, Sarasota County will create a project to connect the tanks. As the tanks are close to each other, the project will create an underwater trail for SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) divers. The trail will commemorate Sarasota's first soldier to die in Iraq - helicopter pilot CW2 Kyle Jackson - and all other first responders in the county who have lost their lives in the line of duty. It will be called "The Trail of Fallen Heroes." Jackson's name is on a bronze plaque on one of the reef balls scheduled to be deployed this week. There will be three balls every 15 feet connecting the four sites, so divers can find their way. You can reach M-8 by going 12.6 nautical miles on a heading of 239 degrees true from the New Pass sea buoy. The northernmost tank is at 27 degrees 12 minutes 635 seconds north, 82 degrees 48 minutes 191 seconds west. The tanks are between 160 and 610 feet apart, with three reef balls every 15 feet to guide divers. Article thanks to Pelican Press.

Diving Saturday & Body Surfing Sunday

So, we did make it out for a charter on Saturday afternoon. We ended up going to Silvertooth and had a great dive. Viz was about 15 on the surface and got down around 5 feet on the bottom. We got chased off the site by a thunder cell. The customer had brought out his GPS with NexRad radar on on it. Pretty cool as it showed the track of each of the thunder cells headed our way.

Sunday was the day to go body surfing. I did feel bad for the poor lifeguards on SK public had to watch all the folks out there floundering around in the surf. Carl and I took our fins out and caught some waves and got washed around by a bunch of waves. The current was running north and drifting we would cover from the south end of the beach to the north end, walk back and start all over again.

The surf was strong from the southwest. Shark toothing will be good when the viz clears up a bit. The surf forecast is looking good for the end of the week. Greg