Little Salt Spring. Photo by Curt Bowen
Nothing wakes me up like the taste of sulfur water in the morning. Welcome to Little Salt Spring.
Little Salt Spring is a natural sinkhole and an important archeological site owned and operated by the University of Miami. Most people might think that spending a week in Little Salt Spring would only mean being dirty, considering that the living conditions consist of a trailer and a port-a-potty. However, my experience during my Scientific Diving class at the University of Miami was definitely worth roughing it for few days. I spent time learning amazing SCUBA diving techniques that most people only see on the big screen.
Dive team preparing for surface supplied air dive with the Florida Aquarium assistant.
Have you ever seen a movie like The Abyss or Deep Blue Sea where divers talk to people on the surface as they explore uncharted territory underwater? That’s exactly what we did. Florida Aquarium divers taught us how to use full-face masks with surface supplied air. With the full-face mask on we could talk to people on land and to our dive partner. Talking underwater was so much fun, but understanding each other at first was difficult since our breathing made us all sound like Darth Vadar because we were so excited. But surface supplied air is used for purposes other than reenacting classic Star Wars scenes. Research divers use surface supply to extend the amount of time they are able to spend diving because it eliminates air consumption restrictions, which is a limiting factor for underwater research.
Just when I thought I had learned the coolest dive technique, the professor brought out a new toy: underwater scooters. Researchers use scooters because they allow divers to cover a greater area while consuming less gas, making data collection more efficient. Once in our SCUBA gear, we clipped onto the scooter, pulled the trigger, and ZOOM! My body was being propelled through the water effortlessly as the lake bottom passed under me. All of a sudden I was in James Bond’s movie Thunderball racing around underwater by scooter. Thankfully, unlike James Bond we were not fighting a battle against underwater henchmen but learning how to dive with this new piece of equipment. Scooters have various speeds, from cruising to flying, so I spent my time flying! It made me never want to swim with fins again.
Between breathing surface supplied air with a full-face mask and diving with scooters, I hardly had time to notice the taste of sulfur in the water. Nowhere else but the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science could you find a class that spends a week diving like they do in the movies.
This blog post is part of a series of stories written by RSMAS graduate students enrolled in the Spring 2012 Scientific Communications (RSM 545) course.
Christina Vilmar
MPS: Tropical Marine Ecosystem Management
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