The island of Au'nuu off of Tutuila
Yesterday was a good but long day with a total of four dives and about 10 miles of transit. It was fun however because I'm starting to take on different dive roles. For the first dive, I was a safety standby diver for the Oceanography Team while they moved an instrument anchor. I was able to watch them use the a liftbag to move a 250 pound anchor. It had moved about 100 feet either due to the tsunami or to boats using the instrument as a mooring site. My real role would have been to go down and retrieve one of the working divers in case something went very wrong. It is always a good thing when you're a bored safety diver. The 2nd and 3rd dives were collecting calibration data along a transect. Exactly the same method that I've been doing for the past month, but this time I was also taking site pictures for historical documentation. There was also another person in the water collecting the same data that I was for comparison between the two of us. The 4th dive I was helping collect diseased coral samples for an on-going cellular research project. The collection work really wasn't difficult but it kept the day interesting to be changing between roles.
Today will thankfully be a bit shorter with only 2 dives planned. I have to go for now, I hear the crane starting for our small boat.
Take care and talk soon,
Cristi
That's great that you're starting to get to do many different things. It certainly helps to stave off boredom and to see the many different aspects of the program.
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