Day 18: Thursday, January 30, 2014

Exciting turn of events! Rather than working on dive skills today, we began working on boating skills. While we're here, we'll be learning how to operate and drive small boats so we can use them for future diving excursions/research projects. 

The Nautilus and the Loper, two of the boats we'll be driving

We started out with a short lecture on the basics of boat navigation, as well as the procedures for taking out and using a boat here at Wrigley. We then progressed to the basics of knot-tying so that we could secure our boats to the mooring, etc. I was a bit apprehensive since I remember failing shoelace tying 101 as a child. Surprisingly, it wasn't half as bad as I expected, and I mastered the knots after a few tries. 

Working to knot the rope correctly

Now the more disappointing part. Since there was so many of us, not all of us could start the actual boat-driving part of training today. If the weather's good, I'll be able to do that tomorrow- if not, I'll have to wait until Monday. Not that I have much to complain about; I'll take this over sitting in Leavey Library back at USC any day.

Day 17: Wednesday, January 29, 2014

We continued working on our rescue skills in the water today, but we added more gear and equipment to the rescue drills. I sincerely hope I'm never caught in an actual rescue situation because dragging a buddy behind you while saving enough air to administer rescue breaths isn't anything close to a leisure swim. 

The towel over the head pretty much sums up post-breakfast pre-dive exhaustion

We did two dives total today plus lecture so it was dinner time by the time the day was done. Definitely one of those days where time revolves around the meal schedule.

Day 16: Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Back in the water today! We took our first class field trip to Little Harbor, which is about five miles away on the other side of the island. Since there's a beach there, we learned how to do beach entries, as well as rescue dives out of the surf.

Waiting for the bus in the morning, we decided to start a game of Ninja. You get one movement to try to hit another person's hand- if your hand is hit, you're out.

The bus eventually got here, and we all piled on with our dive gear as well as lunches for the afternoon. 

After about a 20 minute bus ride, we finally arrived at Little Harbor. It was a really pretty campground-esque place, complete with palm trees and fire ring.

Here's a shot of Little Harbor itself, where we conducted our rescue dives. The surf wasn't too strong, but we had tons of fun diving in and out of the waves in our wetsuits. By the end of our time in the water, we were all covered in seaweed and salt- the trademarks of a day well spent.

After getting out of the water and eating lunch, we had some time to look around. Most of us went on a mini-hike to Shark Harbor, which was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was hitting the water just right, and the ocean looked as if it were glowing white.

Chase and Katie walking to Shark Harbor

Pausing for pictures overlooking the cove

Albert's mid-hike find

 Here's one of my favorite shots from the day, a panoramic of the harbor:

And I'll throw in one more group shot just for good measure:

When we returned to campus, we rinsed down our gear and had some free time followed by a short lecture on Nitrox diving. Who said school isn't fun?

Day 15: Monday, January 27, 2014

The campus came back to life today as everyone returned from their weekend on the mainland. Not a day too early either- I definitely missed having the group all together!

We started off Monday right by going down to the Hyperbaric Chamber and getting Narked. For those of you who don't know what that means, the proper name is Nitrogen Narcosis- when you get down to deep depths, the high pressure causes people to feel/act like they're drunk. I wasn't really convinced, but sure enough, they brought the pressure in the chamber down to a depth of 95 feet, and I definitely felt like there was a little something in my system. It was tons of fun to hear everyone's voice get higher from the air pressure/goof around together, especially because everything was slightly funnier than normal.  Lots of laughing! Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos because my camera would've cracked under the pressure in the chamber.


I guess being Narked makes you tired, because I passed out after lunch and had a fantastic nap. My friend sneaked a picture of me being a bundle of blankets:

We also had a brutal three hour lecture on aspects of the hyperbaric chamber, dive tables, and dive computers. At some point my brain overloaded and I spaced out for a bit, but I was able to snap back and pull it together for the end of the lecture. It wasn't that the lecture wasn't interesting, it was just one of those days.  

It's 9:36 and my brain's already shutting down, so I'm going to call it a day. Goodnight to all!

Day 14: Sunday, January 26, 2014

Another slow day on the island. Having only been with four other people since Thursday, I'm beginning to feel like civilization is just a dream.

Being absolutely exhausted from all the diving the day before, neither I nor my roommate made it down to breakfast. I really didn't do anything today besides watch seven episodes of Masterchef and do some more work on applications/internship responsibilities. That also means I didn't take any pictures, so I'll steal a photo my friend took on one of her morning kayak excursions. She ran into a bunch of sea lions, which live on a huge rock right off of shore. You can hear their barking constantly here at Wrigley- quite a change from the crickets I'm used to hearing back home in North Carolina.

Sea Lion heads popping out of the water

Day 13: Saturday, January 25, 2014

If I spent 80% of yesterday sitting at my desk, I spent 80% of today in the water diving.  We did a record three dives in one day, with the day going as follows:

1. Wake up/Breakfast
2. Dive
3. Lunch
4. Dive
5. Nap/Dinner
7. Dive

The second dive after lunch wasn't the best since the surge was up and the visibility was pretty low. But the dive after dinner more than made up for that because it was our first night dive. It took some serious self pep-talking to get myself down to the waterfront considering the cold night air and the general lack of sun, but once we were in the water, it was amazing. Other than the beam of our flashlights, everything was pitch black in the water. A couple of times, I would sweep my flashlight to my side only to find a ray swimming by my side. We also ran into a leopard shark and a ton of spiny lobster.

Despite the lobster looking semi-terrifying at night, I tried to catch a few- unsuccessfully. I can't tell if it was because they're ridiculously fast or because I would always slightly hesitate right before I grabbed at them (it's considerably freaky to grab at a lobster, especially since it looks ends up looking like a mini sea-monster in the flashlight beam). Probably some combination of both.

Here's some photos from the first two dives:

Gearing up for the morning dive; I'm in the black wetsuit in the back

Afternoon dive; I'm in the foreground of the photo

Overall, an exhausting but satisfying day.

Day 12: Friday, January 24, 2014

In case you thought that every single day of living on an Island was going to be fabulous, you thought wrong. I spent 80% of the day sitting at my desk working on applications for summer REU programs to Costa Rica and Puerto Rico. The other 20% was spent doing laundry and eating. This photo pretty sums up my day:

My habitat for the day

The only exciting thing that happened today was the start of my internship. While I'm here, I'll be working as a marketing intern for Empowered.Org, which is affiliated with the non-profit Global Brigades. The entire internship is virtual, so I'll be managing the job entirely from my laptop. Work officially started today, so cheers to that!

Day 11: Thursday, January 23, 2014

Woke up and took my final exam for ENST 298a; it's been 11 days and my first class is done! I could get used to this block schedule thing. 

With the exception of me and three other people, everyone's heading back to the mainland for the weekend. I have some applications to get done, so I elected to stay. The boat leaves at 3:30, so it'll be a pretty quite weekend from then on. 

Since I'm pretty much planning on working at my desk all day, I doubt anything very interesting is going to happen. I'll just put up some pictures I've taken throughout the week that I have yet to share:

Shelved oxygen cylinders outside of our dive lockers

Our wetsuits, BC's, and regulators hanging to dry

Laying out my gear pre-dive 

Andd all of that eventually ends up on my body

Day 10: Wednesday, January 22, 2014

We resumed our diving schedule with a dive in the morning. We've finally achieved basic scuba certification status (woohoo!), so we got to go out on our own today with a buddy. The instructors were still on the dock supervising and we had some depth boundaries, but other than that, the ocean was ours to explore.

My friend Maddie brought along her underwater camera and snapped some photos of Savannah and I attempting underwater yoga/meditation.

I'm on the left; Savannah's blowing water rings on the right.

Underwater meditation at its best

This was my favorite dive so far- not only was it tons of fun, but I had zero problems with my ears. What wasn't as fun was the three hours of lecture we had afterwards on Nitrox Diving, Dive Physics, and MPAs. Sometimes it's hard to remember that this is still school. We have our second midterm tomorrow, so I'll be whipping our my calculator for the first time since before Christmas. 

 Although I've stopped having trouble with my ears, it looks like the diving deities are determined to keep me out of the water for a little longer. 

Before I arrived at Catalina, I had a pretty deep gash on my leg from my previous trip to Panama. I've been diving with it anyways, but it's been re-opening every day from the salt water exposure/wetsuit. I finally got it looked at yesterday, and they put some butterfly bandages on to pull the gash together since it's too wide to heal. Apparently I'm supposed to stay out of the water for a couple of days to give it a chance to mend, but I have half a mind to ceram-wrap my leg and dive over the weekend anyways. 

Either way, it looks like I'm going to have a pretty gnarly scar on my leg. Time to start brainstorming cool backstories?

Day 9: Tuesday, January 21, 2014

For the first time since we got here, we took a break from diving today and worked on navigation skills instead. We started out the morning by laying out transect lines (which are essentially long measuring tapes used underwater) to measure our paces per a unit distance. This allows us to estimate how far we are traveling when we don't have measuring tools. We later replicated a similar activity underwater to calculate how many fin cycles it took for us to travel 40 meters. 

Students laying our their transect lines

We also learned how to use compass navigation and underwater slates. A sense of direction has never been my forte, so it looks like this compass is about to become my new best friend.

My underwater slate with attached compass

After our navigation exercises in the morning, the rest of the day consisted of lectures on Marine Protected Areas. Not too eventful of a day, unless you want to count watching Despicable Me at night. 

So that you have an idea of who's on this island with me, here's a collage of our photos that the admin building hung up in their office. Granted, pretty much everyone looks better in real life since these pictures were taken right after we rolled out of bed and headed to the waterfront in the early morning.  

Oh, to be photogenic.

Day 8: Monday, January 20, 2014

After our daily morning dive today, someone suggested that we go hiking. People were willing enough, and thinking that a leisurely late afternoon walk might be just the thing, I joined in as well. But somewhere along the way, someone had the genius idea to hike straight up the slope of the mountain-hill pictured below. It doesn't look that steep in the photo, but my quads were telling me very differently by the time we were about 15 minutes into the hike. By the time we were close to the top, it was a little closer to a rock scramble than a hike.

So much for leisurely late afternoon walk.

Snapped a shot of the slope post-climb

People making their way up slowly 

Being me, I was too busy scrambling up to really pay attention to what I was grabbing. Which is how I ended up grabbing a fistful of cactus instead of the rock I thought I was going for. I take back every condescending comment I ever made about people who complain about splinters.

The trail was actually covered with Prickly Pear Cacti, which are native to Catalina Island. By the time I was at the top, there was even cactus splinters in my shoes (not sure how I managed that one).

When we finally reached the top, we were feeling pretty sweaty and pretty accomplished.

Group shot at the top making scuba hand signals

Wrigley Institute looked pretty small from all the way up there. Bernie tried to duck out of my shot of the view from the peak, but failed miserably: 

And just as a little side note, I'll pay homage to this little fox that's been hanging around our campus. It's an endangered species endemic to Catalina, and a pro at begging for food. Unfortunately for it, I don't think the cookies and churros we've been eating are going to be making their way into its mouth anytime soon.

Day 7: Sunday, January 19, 2014

Scratch that whole thing I had yesterday about taking a day off diving. I woke up with my ears feeling pretty normal today so I decided I'd go diving anyways. They definitely hurt some when I descended, and I had to go slower than everyone else, but they were fine once I made it. We dove to about 40 feet today, and worked on weight belt removals underwater and emergency ascents. 

Albert took his GoPro with him today and got some pretty cool footage of what we see when we dive. You can see Garibaldi (the bright orange fish like the one at 1:53) and the Leopard Shark (3:43), both of which we see regularly. The surrounding scenery is pretty typical of the Kelp Forests that we swim through. Here's the video he took:

Other than diving, we also did some CPR training today as part of our DAN (Divers Alert Network) Certification in the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. Basically, the Hyperbaric Chamber simulates different underwater pressures, and allows treatment of dive injuries. It kinda looks like a huge submarine. We got an inside tour from one of the directors of the Hyperbaric Chamber, Tom Carr, who also serves as one of our dive instructors. 

Entering the Hyperbaric Chamber

The Hyperbaric Chamber from the outside

Our CPR Training Dummy

Inside of the Hyperbaric Chamber

Savannah having a little  too much fun

We have a test on our CPR knowledge tomorrow, so that should be fun.

And just for good measure, I'll end this post with another beautiful sunset. (Photocreds to Savannah)

Day 6: Saturday, January 18, 2014

More diving today, but I guess my ears didn't completely go back to normal from yesterday. We were supposed to do two dives, one before lunch and one after. The first dive went fine, but about half a hour after I got out of the water, a bunch of pressure started building up in both of my ears. The pain got pretty bad, so I skipped out on the second dive. It's been about ten hours since, and my ears are still a little skewed, but going back to normal. I probably won't dive tomorrow to let them fully recover.

Moral of the story, don't dive with a cold. 

Dive or no dive, Catalina's still gorgeous

Instead of going diving, I walked to the Two Harbors General store to stock up on more Claritin. Kayaking last time was probably faster, since the walk is 4 miles roundtrip. We got some pretty nice photo ops along the trail; the sky was gorgeous.

Bernie being Bernie

Trail to Two Harbors

Sunset on the way home

Town of Two Harbors

Casually ran into some deer

Day 5: Friday, January 17, 2014

To kick off the day, we had our first midterm exam. Not too bad- a lot of questions on Catalina marine wildlife and dive physics. We did our swim test for diving after the exam, which consisted of 9 minutes and 400 meters. Lucky for me, we got to use our fins, snorkels, and wetsuits since the water was so cold. Basically, we had to swim across and back the harbor in the picture below.

My classroom for the next five months

We went out on another dive after lunch. I've had a small cold ever since I got back from Panama and came out to the island. Technically you're not supposed to dive with a head cold since you can't equalize the pressure in your ears (aka pop them). I've been taking Claritin and not feeling too bad, so I didn't think it was a big deal. Unfortunately, the pressure started bothering me at the end of the dive, so I had to surface a couple of minutes early.

Even though I had to surface early, I saw a bunch of Thornback Rays, Halibut, Sea Cucumbers, and Bat Rays, and Leopard Sharks. If this is school, I can't really complain.

More Classroom Shots

Dinner after a long day