Kate Stanton (dive officer), Ben Robinson (marine biologist) and I headed down for a week of diving in the vast waters of Plymouth.
Together we are the foundation of the wintering dive team...We are a team of the few people conducting science at Rothera during the Winter. Due to this we need to make sure that we all work together and that our diving is tiptop before heading down south.
We spent the week at the amazing new Plymouth marine station with Plymouth University. Matt Brown ( ex BAS dive officer and station commander) and the rest of the awesome dive instructors at UOP guided us through the training. Thanks to Bex, Charlie, Cath, Mike, Pete and Pete for your help!
The aim of the week was to test our new drysuits (courtesy of BAS) and testing out the BAS dive kit, where the bail out block (reserve tank handle) is on the mask instead of the usual waist strap; additionally diving with each other and building up trust.
Thursday was spent up at DDRC where we learnt to operate a dive chamber. Within a dive chamber there is always a dive medic to assist the bent diver, so we even learnt how to mend a pneumothorax! With our small dive team we will be mucking in with everything on base, however, one major task is the diving so if anything goes wrong then we have a slick system in place to give high standard treatment in fast time.
We made most of the sun!
By the end of the week everything came together after a few issues here and there and getting my buoyancy correct in my new suit!
We can't wait to get started! When we get to Rothera we will have more drills and once we are happy diving in the extreme environment of Antarctica then the real work will begin ... seriously we're diving in ANTARCTICA !?!! Bah