Tag Archives: scuba

York River Scientific Diving

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In October 2022, in the York River, we did our second round of collaborative scientific dive sampling involving scientists and engineers from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), VA Tech, and the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL). There were multiple goals of the study which involved looking at the sediment structure (characteristics) and infauna (worms) of the York River bottom in Virginia, USA. Various shipboard coring samplers were employed, however, diving with hand cores obtained much better samples for x-ray analysis and other protocols. Thanks to a reciprocity agreement within the Standards of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS), between VIMS and DISL, my dive buddy, Dr. Kelly Dorgan (DISL), and I were more than happy to obtain these samples in SCUBA, especially given the optimal conditions for the dive featured in the video below. The visibility was around 2 meters and water temperature was 15oC. There were other dives during this same project where the visibility was essentially zero! Hope you enjoy virtually joining us for the dive, thanks to my head-mounted GoPro Hero8 video camera.

Underwater Fauna of Oahu, HI

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As the Diving Safety Officer, the safety of the scientific dive team at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science is paramount. This entails a lot of work, training, shipboard missions, collaborations, record keeping, and, at times, diving in some very mucky, cold conditions. None of it is unbearably terrible, however, sometimes, like this summer, I manage to end up somewhere spectacular! We have divers all over the planet and in this case, I had bran new scientific divers in training, in Honolulu, Hawaii! It was extremely valuable to work with these DITs in their research environment, rather than some flooded quarry. There’s no substitute for the salt water, waves, currents, marine life and other realistic stressors during training. Because of this realistic training, they’re better divers and I’m a better instructor! In the course of our proficiency dives, I had a GoPro mounted on a PVC pole, which is an amazing way to get close-up videos of the critters underwater. Video below. Enjoy!

Underwater Critter Highlights from Oahu July 2022