Coming up, Zach-of-all-Trades finally learns to dive, but first he has to escape from the
office!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
And so, I brough the entire family on a Grand Cayman adventure for a week of exciting diving!
Perfect, cut!
I love being on location in the tropics!
It’s fabulous, but it’s also nice to know that I’ve got someone at home, holding down
the fort and doing the editing.
I better call and check in on Zach.
Blue World Studios!
Hey Zach hows the editing going?
It’s a thrill a minute!
Well, I’m really sorry that you are chained to a desk at home but hey, someone’s gotta
do it.
Yeah, I’m taking care of it.
Alright, I’ll see you when I get back.
Okay.
Later !
Bye.
One of these days I’ll get certified!
Hey Zach, you here?
In here!
Meet Zach Peterson, also known around the Blue World headquarters as Zach of all trades.
We call him that because he has multiple roles.
He films above water in the field, he shoots our aerials, and he is our lead editor back
in the office.
But the one thing he doesn’t do, is scuba dive.
Blue World has a lot of underwater camera people.
And the last thing we need is another diver on the team.
But when we were in Grand Cayman recently, Zach got to try scuba diving, with a Discover
Scuba class.
This is a scuba diving mini-class where you can try it out and decide if you like it,
before you commit to taking the whole course.
You do a little bit in the pool, and then go for a supervised ocean dive.
Now I know Jonathan says he doesn’t need another scuba diver, but what does he know?
So when we got home, Cameraman Zach busted me out of the office and we headed over to
East Coast Divers in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Hey how’s it going?
I’m Zach.
Nice to meet you.
Welcome to East coast.
Ready to get started?
You have the paperwork ready for him?
Let’s take you to the back classroom.
Alrighty.
Meanwhile back at the office, I’m thinking I need a thicker chain!
So welcome to the east coast divers classroom.
Thank you for having me.
Usually this classroom is full, but I’m lucky enough to get a private class from Cameraman
Zach, who is also a scuba instructor.
The classroom sessions are not as exciting as other parts of the course, but it’s important
to understand the physiology of diving, and its effects on the body in order to stay safe
underwater.
In the classroom, we learn about the effects of pressure and buoyancy, how the equipment
works, as well as the rules and regulations around the sport.
So on the test coming up, we are going to ask questions like what is the absolute pressure…
Now it’s time to take the written test and I’m a little nervous.
It would be embarrassing to fail—Jonathan would never let me live it down!
Ready?
Question 1.
B.
Correct.
Question two…
Eighteen, Nineteen
B, C, A.
How many did you get wrong?
You Passed!
Woo!
The next part of the course involves actual water.
So we are on our way over to the pool for his pool session of the day.
You excited?
Oh I’m so excited!
It’s gonna be good.
So today I’m going to be cameraman, not host!
The pool session starts with a swim test.
I have to float for 5 minutes.
Oh man!
Talk about easy!
Back in my day we had to tread water for 2 hours!
Now I have to set up my own gear.
Zach will check to see if I did it right.
Once he is satisfied that my gear is correctly assembled, he puts his together.
We help each other get our tanks on, and that’s when I learn that it’s always better to
be last so you aren’t lifting a tank while you are wearing one!
The giant stride entry is the most common way to jump off a boat or a dock--but you
need to be sure to step far enough out that you don’t hit your tank.
So we practice.
With smaller boats, the back roll is more practical, but it’s a little weird-looking
at the pool.
Before we submerge, we practice techniques for towing an exhausted dive buddy.
Ready?
Go.
Finally it’s time to breathe underwater!
Releasing the air from our buoyancy compensators, we sink slowly into weightlessness.
For most divers, this is the first time that they ever get to experience breathing underwater,
so we spend a few minutes just having fun and getting the hang of it.
For many people taking a dive class, this is the moment they have been waiting for,
and it’s really exciting.
But after a while, it’s time to get down to business.
Diving in the ocean, it’s easy to get your mask kicked off by accident, so it’s important
to learn how to put it back on without a panic.
It’s easy—just replace the mask, tilt your head back and blow through your nose
to fill it back up with air.
Scuba divers have their own type of sign language for communicating things like tank pressure
and decompression time.
I have to demonstrate that I know how to do it.
This is the sign for a safety stop.
And this is what divers do on a safety stop.
A little game of rock/seaweed/dive knife.
It’s pretty rare that a diver would ever need to remove gear like this underwater,
but practicing how to do it builds confidence in using the equipment under different circumstances.
Zach has a whole checklist of skills that I have to practice and demonstrate.
One of the most important is the out-of-air scenario where Zach pretends he is out of
air and I have to give him a regulator and find my back up.
Check out the dugong roll!
Critical move!
After a couple of fun hours in the pool, I’m all finished with my pool portion of the course.
So we are switching jobs now, huh?
Now it’s the moment of truth: my ocean dives!
We head up to Folly Cove in beautiful Cape Ann, Massachusetts where I will complete three
dives under supervision and test my skills in the ocean.
We’re diving from shore which is a little more work than a boat dive, but we can take
our time and go at a relaxed pace.
Zach has many dives here in Folly Cove so he gives me a run-down on the layout.
The water is chilly but the air is hot.
Once we put on our warm suits, we need to get in the water quickly or we will overheat.
The entry here can be tricky because the big rocks are slippery, and it’s easy to trip.
The cold water actually feels really good.
On the bottom, the visibility is not as good as in the pool.
We start with a navigation test, using a compass to follow a heading.
Next I have to recover a lost regulator, but its hidden in plain sight.
So I try again.
The mask removal is different in the ocean.
First, it’s hard to feel what you are doing with thick gloves.
But also, the water is cold and it’s a shock when it hits your face.
I concentrate on the task and get it done.
After completing my skills, I can spend some time exploring!
And even though the visibility is not that good, there is a lot of great stuff to see.
A horseshoe crab cruises along the sea floor.
I’ve always wondered why they have a long pointy tail!
Now I realize it’s not a weapon, it’s a tool.
Flounders are flat fish normally found blending into
the sand.
But this guy has found a little spot near some algae and turned red to blend in better.
Flounders lay on their sides and have both eyes on one side of the head as an adaptation
for life in this habitat.
I come across a crab with a poofy orange ball on its underside.
That’s a female rock crab carrying a big brood of eggs.
She carries them around to keep them safe until they hatch and the tiny planktonic hatchlings
float away in the current.
After a whole day of diving Folly Cove, I’m pretty chilly, but I am finished with my scuba
class and I’m officially a certified scuba diver!
Well, are you certified!
Congratulations, you are now a certified diver.
Thank you!
Alright!
Sorry about your job with Jonathan!
Let’s go somewhere warm!
Learning how to scuba dive is not as difficult as I thought it would be.
There are three basic parts.
You learn the science and rules in the classroom.
Then you learn the skills in the pool.
Finally you put it all together in open water.
The whole process can be completed in only a couple weeks.
Now that I’m certified, I can’t wait to go on adventures and see with my own eyes
what life looks like in the blue world!
Oh don’t get carried away there Zach!
I think you’ve got to get back to the edit suite now!
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