I love this. A creative idea that took a lot of effort and dedication to pull off! And the Tank Banger team did it.
If you like what they did (or even if you don’t) consider donating through them or directly to one of the marine conservation groups they support (my personal favorites include The Coral Reef Alliance and Shark Savers)
As I started diving doubles and rebreathers I quickly realized that the dive log sheets I have been using for years (literally decades) were no longer really serving me. My main dive buddy had a dive log sheet he had cut and pasted together into a sheet that worked for him, but like me he had many small changes he still wanted to make. While we were on the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster diving in Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary, we sat down after a long day of diving and talked about what each of us wanted out of a dive log sheet. His needs were only slightly different from mine, so I offered to build up a new log sheet with all the things we wanted. For issues of copyright and all that I created the sheets from scratch though I did use existing visual elements where they made sense. After a few iterations we had the sheet both of us needed. We created it mainly for advanced, technical and/or science divers but we also modified it to create a second set of log sheets specifically for the open water class that was taught this fall.
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Open Water and Advanced/Technical/Science Dive Log Sheets - offered under Creative Commons By-NC-SA license. Please refer others to this page to share this version of the sheet.
The Open Water Log Sheets also offer:
The Advanced Log Sheets also offer:
For those that own their own rebreather and want to track cumulative hours on that rebreather unit or cumulative hours since last major service I have a version that replaces dives for the year and sciece dives with cumulative unit rebreather dives and hours.
Both log sheet files print out 2 double sides log sheets per 8.5×11″ page (4 dives per page). The open water file prints 6 open water training dive logs then an additional 14 log sheets for normal dives, though more sheets can be printed easily. Please feel free to use these files for your own diving or diving program. I do ask that if you do use them, please leave a comment here, and if you find them really useful put a donation in the tip jar. I am willing to modify these files for special purposes, and as the files are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA license you may modify the files yourself as long as you share the resulting file yourself.
Yesterday I was really jazzed to get in to the dive locker. I had emailed my normal dive buddy, Joe, an ex-navy undergraduate who seriously loves to be underwater, over the weekend and invited him to do a fish count and proficiency dive. I need more time in doubles to get really familiar with them. Naturally he said yes, so we were on. We set 11:30am as the time to meet at the dive locker.
After working a bit from home, I got ready to bike in to campus and walked out the door at 10:40am for a 45 minute commute, taking the cyclocross route along the coast that I like best. I felt well rested and my legs were ticking over really well, but as I got down to Noank, which is about 5km in, I had a sinking feeling. Had I remembered my dive computer? A quick check of the panniers confirmed that I had not.
Longer, but more scenic commute to school
I decided I really wanted the computer, so I turned around and added an extra 15 minutes to the commute. Now I would, at best, be 10-15 minutes late. The rest of the commute was great, with a new personal best for the route, minus the false start. It was a bit late to see much wildlife on the route, but I did see several herons and one scrambling woodchuck.
Joe was waiting in the dive locker when I arrived 10 minutes late. The tanks were already filled, so as I verified the blend and fill of my tank, we talked about the amazing women’s world cup game from the day before. Before heading off to get some lunch, we went up to see our dive safety officer (DSO) who had just gotten back from vacation. While he was away we had several dives and on one of them I flooded one of the locker’s canister lights. I wanted to tell him in person and find out what needed to be done to get it fixed.
Unfortunately, it was not just any light. It was his favorite light from Salvo (now Light Monkey) with a custom made cable so it would fit his rebreather rig perfectly. Ouch.
WLIS MySound Data Buoy
After taking my ass-chewing for flooding the light, I called Light Monkey, who set up a repair for us. They told me they could turn the lights around in one day. No way we could get them back in time for the WLIS dive, but we should still have them back by the end of the week. I boxed up the flooded light and a second light with a shorter cable that also needed some routine attention. Dive lockers are notoriously hard on gear! After almost 3 hours we managed to get everything taken care of and the lights off to Florida with express service.
Finally, we could get back to the dive. Instead of our original noon start time, we crawled over the seawall by the dive locker (that’s a real joy in doubles, mind you!) and into the water at 3:04pm. It was a great dive too. Visibility in the cove was about 5′ and filamentous algae covered the bottom. But as soon as we got out of the shallows, vis opened up to maybe 10′ and the filamentous algae disappeared, revealing a thick carpet of macro algae and sea grasses. It seems to be an especially good year for the sea grasses and kelp, denser and much larger patches than I remember any year before.
Beach to beach swim - Dive Locker on right side, sail boat launch beach on left.
The fish count went great. We saw fluke (a.k.a. summer flounder) (Paralichthys dentatus), cunner (Tautogolabrus adspersus), grubby sculpin (Myoxocephalus aeneus) and tautog (Tautoga onitis), as well as blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus), spider crabs (Libinia emarginata), and three horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus), including a very large male. There were many young of the year winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus), from a half an inch to 2 inches long.
As we were finishing our surface swim into the beach (too shallow to dive with the surge, too deep and rocky to walk), we noticed the DSO’s pickup truck parked right at the sea wall. As it was a bit late, we knew he was waiting for us. As we climbed up on the beach, he asked after the dive, what we saw etc., then casually asked who the lead diver was. Joe and I had never really settled who the lead diver was. He has ten times my experience, but I had suggested doing the dive, so I took the responsibility (knowing the other shoe was about to drop, most likely on my gluteus maximus). Sure enough, in all the confusion about the lights, I had forgotten to fill out the dive plan log on the marine operations bulletin board. We had fully briefed the DSO, but someone asked the marine operations manager if the divers off the Point were university divers. He didn’t know, but went down to the marine operations bulletin board to see. Ooops! Lesson learned and reinforced well.
Ass-chewings, by the way, do obey the laws of gravity, picking up momentum as they go downhill.
Grubby Sculpin
The past few weeks turned out to be pretty busy for me online (at least compared to the past oh, 24 months), though from this site alone, it may be hard to tell. Since much of my posting has been at other places I thought a quick summary of the months posts (and links) would be helpful for those interested:
Hopefully in the next few days we will have a guest posting or two here by Johann. Discussing some of his recent adventures and science from his point of view.
In addition to the postings there are several new YouTube videos I uploaded in the past weeks, mostly of the underwater variety.
As I begin the home stretch for my MSc in oceanography I have been looking very hard at the job markets and the world of research science out there. It is not pretty right now, but then, with the help of a loving and supportive family we’ve weathered this type of climate before. I know we’ll find our way through this and come out the other side, happy. Because that is just what we do Tammy and Johann and me. We cling tight to what matters most – each other and our closest family and friends.
One of the things I have to keep coming back to is “What do I want to be when I grow up”
But that has never been a simple question. When I was young I wanted to be a scientist and an explorer. I was excited and my imagination ignited by archeology, marine biology and the space program. I devoured national geographic magazines, Wild Kingdom and Jaques Cousteau’s specials. I remember reading and re-reading the articles by Dr. Eugenie Scott on the amazing fish of the Red Sea and sharks in general. I remember reading about Dr. Sylvia Earle’s descent to 1250m in a hard suit and her Tektite mission. I know it may sound crazy, but one of the highlights of my brief science career so far was to dive on the Aquarius site as a science diver… the descendant of Tektite, it was, part way to an old dream come true – to live and work in an underwater habitat studying the seas for hours and hours at a time. One day I still hope to make that dream come true.
Science diver approaching the NOAA/UNCW Aquarius Habitat off Key Largo, Florida
But my path took a strange turn and instead of going to Woods Hole or Scripts or Harbor Branch, I ended up in the Army working as an advanced communications specialist using, trouble shooting and fixing just about every type of communication technology in the Army, but specializing in satellite systems. It could be a challenging job, especially in remote combat deployments, but it really didn’t make me stretch. I spent my spare time reading and improving my animation skills as a form of entertainment. In Central America I learned to scuba dive and spent as much time on Roatan Island as I could, doing 3-4 dives a day. The more I dove, the more I needed to learn about the fish and invertebrates I was seeing. I subscribed to several diving magazines and bought every marine biology book my scuba instructor could get from the States. I invited my future wife to meet me in Roatan, unfortunately she declined.
Sunset on the Meso-American Reef. Copyright E. Heupel
After the army I worked in the computer industry in engineering and eventually web development until the bubble burst. When that happened I returned to school, studying computer systems and graphic design. Unfortunately returning to school also revealed that I had a memory issue. Tammy knew before, but I denied it of course. Unfortunately the tricks I had learned to use on the job, didn’t translate well to the academic environment. I struggled to find a new way of learning and studying, while my grades sank, eventually forcing me to admit defeat temporarily as I withdrew from school.
Fast forward to five years ago when I took advantage of an opportunity to again return to school. This time in Oceanography. I had since learned to deal with my memory issues with new strategies. I started slow, with only two classes, but soon took on a full course load completing the four year degree in three and a half years with a job, a family and still managed a 3.5 GPA. My old skills in electronics, optics, video production and web design all served me well working in labs and earning me opportunities to work with Remotely Operated Vehicles. At the end of undergraduate I knew I needed to take this further, I needed to revisit my old dream of being a scientist working in, on and under the ocean.
The motley crew of the SHRMP 2010 habitat monitoring program mission. Copyright E. Heupel
I was accepted to the graduate program and began learning more about sustainable fisheries and GIS than I thought was possible to learn (and yet I have still only learned a spall portion) . It has been a good run, but now it is almost over. I want to go on further, but I know I need a change in direction. My interests lay more with larval and juvenile marine organisms and their ecosystem roles (besides the stock answer I get from many: “as food” – too damn easy), or in the ecology of deep sea and mangroves and with invasive species in connection to any of the previous. I have at least a hundred questions banging around in my head, and I am loathe to even try to pick only one and say -> This is it.
One of my favorite fish of the mangroves is the juvenile sergeant major. Very cute, shy and nervous - darting constantly around the patch of mangrove they call home. Copyright E. Heupel
More than that there is the question of what good is a PhD, and is the cost too high to justify. I have put my family through a lot already. It has been financially very hard, and we have done without a lot. I have been fortunate that this program knows me, and knows the type of contribution I can make, and also understands that my family is the most important thing in my life. I will never be one of those scientists (or PhD students) so driven by the research that I sacrifice my family (which I have seem too much of in the past 5 years). Driven yes. If I had a spare $10,000 right now I would be on a plane to Belize to chase down one of my burning questions on invasive species and My Seascape of Fear (actually budgeted with no salary it a hair over 10,000). But I’m not going to throw my family under the bus to get there.
Which brings it once again back to what I want to do with the degree. I would like to be able to design and conduct my own research, which I would need a PhD for. I enjoy teaching small to medium size classes, as long as there is at least one or two kids turned on to learning. At a University or college a PhD is generally the ticket for admission to that. At community colleges, a PhD can be required, or a hinderance.
As for the most singlehandedly enjoyable thing I have done in the past 5 years – it would be the outreach efforts at Aquarius. Doing the science, putting on a live show, broadcasting it to kids in their classrooms and online – both doing science and helping to communicate it to a larger audience. That was for me a real rush. Many of the people involved in that team effort did not have PhD’s, but then again many did. I enjoyed the fact that we were communicating conservation, physics and biology directly and passionately to an audience eager to learn.
The marvelous crew of the Aquarius 2010 If Reefs Could Talk mission. Copyright E. Heupel
If I stopped right now, my ideal job, would be either as a freelance science communicator specializing in video and online production or it would be with one of the NURC centers or a similar scientific research organization or NGO where I can put my myriad skills to work – oceanography, diver, science outreach, video, animation, web, database, photography (normal and U/W) and ROV pilot (in training right now). But… likely I would not be able to do my own research, which is important to me.
If I were 23 and single, the answer for me would be easy – go for the PhD and study larval and juvenile ecology issues, especially in the mangroves and deep sea. But I’m not 23, or single. And I wouldn’t trade my family for anything, but it does mean I need to figure the 4-6 years of making (if I’m lucky) $30,000/yr while working very long hours into the equation.
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