Covediver's Underwater World

Every so often, I go back to basics in my diving, you know the drill, mask clears, mask removal and replacement and the like. But my more advanced skills are practiced less frequently. A couple of weeks ago I was trying some new equipment out at the local pool and fell in with youngster, Eric, a recently-certified open water diver. We practiced buddy breathing while swimming back and forth in the pool. I think the last time I really practiced buddy breathing was in March or April of 2000 when I had to demonstrate the skill to recertify as a Department of the Interior diver, a certification that has since lapsed along with the annual requirement for skills demonstration.

Fast forward to 2006. I am gearing up for an underwater Easter egg hunt. My last dive in the ocean was New Year’s Day. I am part of a three-person buddy team. We gear up and head for the water and while I ask my buddy to check that my air valve is open. That is it, the extent of my buddy check. My observance of a ritual that I once considered sacrosanct is now largely neglected.

With five or six dives in the log book for 2005, I have made fewer dives in the last year than at any other time in the last 22 years. It is not that I was away from the water, but it was all done in the swimming pool. I must have swam thousands of yards as I honed my fin swimming skills and stayed in shape for diving, taught snorkeling techniques to people on their way to cruises or vacations outside of Alaska, and practiced rescue skills as a lifeguard. Coupled with endless hours of discussions on line with other divers about techniques and extensive reading of scuba periodicals and books, I seem to be doing everything right except putting what I know into practice.

Take the missing buddy check. I practice self-sufficient diving. I check my gear, check it again, and then check it once more before getting into the water. This is done mostly in silence. In fact, because I have acquired new gear and been diving in an unfamiliar places in the last few years, I have been especially diligent in doing gear checks. The buddy check has fallen into disuse as getting ready to dive has slowly gone from being a shared effort to being a private affair. I can rationalize why this has occurred; I dive with other advanced, self-sufficient divers, the dives are simple or under the supervision of a dive master, or people don’t really want to be bothered checking my gear out and having me reciprocate.

The Easter egg dive went off without a hitch, as have most of my recent dives, which may be reinforcing my complacency at the explicit buddy check. But, given the law of averages, ignoring this check against forgetfulness may soon pay an unwanted and unintended dividend. It is time for me to reinstitute the most basic ritual in diving, pre-dive preparation, captured by the acronym SEABAG. Er…ah…now if I can just remember what the letters stand for!

While checking the news feeds this morning, I came across a press release from the Waterman Academy, a program that takes adolescent males and puts them through a three-week, intensive at-sea training program. The training includes life guarding, scuba and free diving, and a host of aquatic and maritime skills.

The website offers their definition of a “waterman” as “a person that has a complete understanding and respect for the ocean. One who has mastered a set of traditional aquatic skills and gained the knowledge to live, work, and prosper on or near the sea. One who protects the ocean and helps others understand and respect it as well.

This definition illuminates an interesting concept and one I contemplated in a final project for a long-forgotten journalism course in basic magazine writing offered at City College many years ago. I consider myself a waterman because of my skills in sailing, diving, and marine science, some of which are described on my personal website.

Deconstructing the definition provides stimulation for further reflection.

A person that has a complete understanding and respect for the ocean—I am not sure complete understanding is an achievable goal although certainly one worth striving toward. Can we ever really completely understand the ocean? Is it hubris to even assume we can? I seem to learn something every time I go on the water. My understanding and comprehension increases, but it never is satiated. Complete respect for me is not an end; it is a means, a prerequisite for the pursuit of the understanding. The sea is a harsh and unforgiving mistress and respect must always be maintained. Like the bumper sticker says “The Ocean Bats Last.”

One who has mastered a set of traditional aquatic skills and gained the knowledge to live, work, and prosper on or near the sea.—“mastered a set of traditional aquatic skills” implies that there is a body of knowledge and utilitarian practices that can be learned, practiced, and perfected. I could not find a specification of the skills on the website, so the list can be short or long. Certainly, seamanship would be one of the skills. But other than that essential skill, I envision a waterman as a bundle of skills, each necessary to define the quality with no single skill sufficient to define the quality.

And gained the knowledge to live, work and prosper on or near the sea.—This is a pretty straightforward quality, but one that, if taken literally, is a little constricting as it implied that people who live on the Great Lakes could never achieve the state of being a waterman.

One who protects the ocean—As with living near the sea, this reliance on “ocean” is too limiting. I do believe that people who protect all waterways have the quality of being watermen. I also believe that “protection” needs to be in viewed through the lens of the human environment. My definition does have a narrower utilitarian quality of conservation, as opposed to those in the “Deep Blue” movement whose approach is that of deep ecology, a natural system that has rights in and of itself without regard to human values.

And helps others understand and respect it as well. This is the capstone quality, the one that holds the others in place. Don Barthlemess, an instructor in the Marine Technology and Diving Program at Santa Barbara City College once described the concept of the “community of practice” whereby “masters” or “elders” in the community guided the apprentices or “newbies” in the acquisition and application of the basic skills.

I am on the trail of a ship, John Duncan, a whale-back steamer that sailed the Great Lakes. Like the Pacific lumber schooners, these vessels were ubiquitous, the water-borne 18-wheelers of their day. The moved lots of cargo and no one really took much notice of them, one was largely indistinguishable from the rest. Yet, they were the backbone of Great Lakes commerce, acting as lubricant that greased the machinery of commerce in the Industrial Age.

What makes this vessel unique to me is that my great grandfater served aboard her as an engineer. He was aboard her when she sank, but all hands were rescued and she was eventually refloated. The mystery is the inscription on the back of the photo indicates she sunk off Whitefish Bay or Fox Point, Wisconsin. Yet the records of the vessel that I have been able to find on line indicate that she sank in Michiagan. Now, tracing the mystery of a sunken vessel is often a exercise in infinite regression, chasing leads that take you down blind paths to dead ends or finding a gold mine of facts through serendipity. I know of this frustration and joy first hand as I co-authored the Submerged Cultural Resource Assessment for Channel Islands National Park a few years back and have written historic property assessments for maritime infrastructure, such as the pier at the Santa Cruz Island Prisoners Harbor and minor aids-to-navigation on San Nicolas Island.

Check back from time-to-time as I will chronicle the documentation of this ship's history on this site.

The One-Minute Dive Master

I was reading a diver bulletin board recently and joined in a discussion regarding hostility that some on board a dive boat directed toward people who were spear fishing. More than one of the responses (including mine) noted that it was rude for people to hassle spear fishers, as long as they were observing the fish and game laws. Violators were a different story.

The response reminded my of the typology of diver personalities put together by the folks at www.coralrealm.com includes that of Patrol Diver. Individuals exhibiting Patrol Diver behavior are “interested in observing other divers and reporting marine conservation and dive operator violations. Often they can be seen rolling their eyes or shaking their head after observing other divers molesting marine life or violating depth limits. Frequently, they confront violators and communicate with creative hand signals. Sometimes they may be outraged enough to report violators to the dive master, dive operator, tour operator, or resort manager. More commonly, Patrol Divers exhibit passive aggressive behaviors and resort to bad-mouthing violators with their dive buddy. While the Patrol Divers' intentions are well-intended, they should exercise caution if they find themselves on a live-aboard consisting of mostly violators. In this instance, Patrol Divers should carefully check their air hoses for tempering prior to beginning each dive.”

So in these situations what is the proper response to a violation?

I recall one boat that I was working on as a dive master about 20 years ago at Santa Cruz Island when a newbie diver came back to the boat toting a game back full of the sea’s bounty, all of it either out of season or shorter than the minimum size allowed by the regulations. The kid had a bad case of game fever. Among the booty, he had taken a couple of short red abalone thinking they were black abalone. The scars on the abalone’s foot looked like the diver had used his abalone iron as an axe rather than a pry bar. From his “screw you” attitude as I pointed out errors I gathered he was not interested in learning proper identification of each species, so I read him the riot act. I gave him the option of replacing the abalone on his next dive, even though I held out little home for their survival given the damage inflicted, or talking to Fish and Game wardens who I would call to make sure they met the boat when we got back to the harbor. I was admonished by the shop owner who had the charter for going too far with the diver and that “education” always worked better than “chewing someone out.” I was perplexed by this reaction as the owner generally taught a conservation theme in his classes. Any confusion was cleared up the following week when I saw the kid on the boat sporting bright and shiny new equipment purchased from the dive shop including a pneumatic spear gun.

I recently completed a management training program through which I was introduced to the Feedback Model that is applicable in these situations. That model emphasizes description of the situation (when and where the behavior occurred), identification of the behavior that is not acceptable (what occurred), and definition of the impact (on you, others, and the task). The technique emphasizes having the conversation should take place as soon as possible after the situation occurred and critiquing the behavior or action but do not personalize it.

Complementary techniques can be derived from a careful reading of The One Minute Manager a short book by Ken Blanchard that has become one of the classic primers of American and international management since its publication two decades ago. These techniques, which could be included depending on the situation include:
1. Tell people before hand that you are going to let them know how they are doing in no uncertain terms (e.g., game laws are observed on this boat).
2. Reprimand people immediately—don’t wait until the incident is well in the past.
3. Tell people specifically what they did wrong.
4. Tell people, in no uncertain terms, how you feel about what they did wrong.
5. Stop for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence to let them feel how you feel.
6. Reaffirm that you think well of them but not of their performance.
7. Don’t dwell. Realize that when the reprimand is over, it is over.