Thursday, July 31, 2008
Scott Tucker and Kathy
Schubert
Our first dive day!
The group was excited about getting out in the water, and seeing the
Sanford for the first time. After sorting out our diving weights and
scuba equipment with the Quiescence dive shop, we loaded up two boats
and headed out through the mangroves and out into the open water.
Although it was another hot day (as always in July in Florida), the
breeze from the water was refreshing, and the boat ride was beautiful.
Once we arrived at the Sanford wreck site, the group took to the
water and settled on the sandy bottom at 20 feet deep for a review of
basic scuba skills. After a brief tour of the site, the datum points
were set with rebar, and each team began to map and measure their
assigned areas with measuring tapes and underwater slates.
Second boat en route to dive site.
After about an hour,
each team of divers surfaced to the boats, swapped out the old air tanks
with new ones, and we hit the water again, to continue the work. During
the dives, an eagle ray and a nurse shark were spotted cruising the
site! The assignments for the teams were to work on mapping the boiler
of the ship, and the paddle wheel remains. After another hour, it was
time for the boats to depart the site, so the divers surfaced, packed up
their gear and the boats returned us back to Quiescence.
After measuring portions of the site, students map out
their findings.
We continued our
busy day by having a brief lunch, and then we got to work re-drawing our
site plans to scale and getting the information into our journals and
onto graph paper. In addition, the team completed all of the portions
of the NOAA report that summarized our work on the Trelewicz photograph
collection, and completed the photographic database that we had been
working on since our arrival at the field school. Dr. Sheli treated us
to an amazing dinner of her homemade enchiladas to help us keep up our
strength!
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