As you've read in our journal entries, diving is an important part of our work and we spend a lot of our effort here on diving, preparing to dive and processing the organisms we collect. But we had already spent a lot of time preparing for diving here long before we left Birmingham.

Although the diving we do here is not considered "technical" in professional diving terminology, the conditions and gear required for them do require a fair bit of experience and training to ensure safe diving. I've seen some very experienced warm water divers come down here and feel (and act) like they were brand new diver trainees.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) requires some minimal qualifications for someone to be considered for Antarctic diving: One must have at least 50 total dives with at least 15 total dry suit dives. One must have had no fewer than 10 dry suit dives in the year proceeding deployment to Antarctica. And, significantly, the scientist's university Diving Safety Officer (DSO) must certify that the diver is qualified under the university's scientific diving program.

Since most of us in the group have many more than 50 total dives (for a few of us, several times more than that just in Antarctica and/or the Arctic), neither that nor the 15 total dry suit dives is really an issue. But the other requirements are.

Scientific diving is different in many important respects from sport diving. Although pretty much all science divers start out by getting sport diving training, that is just the beginning. Like most American educational institutions that use scuba diving in research, UAB follows the guidelines of the American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS) thorough our affiliation with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL), which is a member of the Academy. So a big step in getting certified to dive in Antarctica is meeting the AAUS and any additional DISL requirements. A basic AAUS requirement is a 100-hour or longer scientific diving course that is taken after someone is already a certified and somewhat experienced sport diver. Fortunately, all members of our UAB group have already been through such a course at other institutions where we've been certified as scientific divers. Consequently, we've merely needed to show that we have had additional formal training such as diving first aid, current certification in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and in emergency diving procedures (particularly in how to provide pure oxygen to a diving accident victim). Then we go down to DISL (always a pleasure!) for a pair of checkout dive with our DSO, Mike Dardeau.

After Mike certifies us within the DISL program, we need to maintain that certification in addition to requirements for Antarctic diving. That means maintaining our CPR and dive accident training and also maintaining our diving proficiency by making dives using our research gear. And in that respect, the things we need to do for our DISL/AAUS requirements and our NSF Antarctic Program requirements mesh. Years that we are in the field, getting the required numbers of science dives for DISL and the required number of dry suit dives for NSF are done here. But other years when we are not in the field we have to get in dry suit dives. We had to do that this past year. Although we were here in 2000 and now in 2001, it was early 2000 so more than a year elapsed between the end of that expedition and the beginning of this one.

Now it may not surprise you that, truth be told, we have very little reason to be diving in dry suits and with other cold-water diving equipment in Birmingham. But we need to use them in order to maintain our proficiency and that truly is important. And as I noted, this past year we had to make at least 10 dry suit dives each before we could be certified to come back. Fortunately, just a couple miles from my home in Pelham we have an absolutely wonderful dive training facility at Alabama Blue Water Adventures.

Alabama Blue Water Adventures is in a flooded rock quarry with a variety of dive friendly features. People come from all over the region to dive there. Wayne Atchison and his family own the business and Wayne has been a wonderful supporter of UAB scientific diving. I am truly grateful to Wayne for his assistance and always-friendly support of our Antarctic diving program. Alabama Blue Water Adventures is where we do the vast majority of our training dives. It has rock walls that mimic the topography we often encounter on our collecting dives here and has spots that go deeper even than we need to maintain our 130 foot depth diving certification levels (130 feet is the deepest diving allowed in the US Antarctic Program). Although it can be a bit "toasty" on the surface, as we are getting ready to dive, the waters at depth in the quarry are cool enough to be comfortable in a dry suit if we go easy with the insulating undergarments.

So, although we've come to the bottom of the earth to dive, critical parts of our preparations took place in Pelham and Dauphin Island. And though I don't know how soon I'll be back at DISL, I know that in a little over 2 weeks I'll be home in Pelham and at UAB. I'll be happy to be home while still missing this wonderful place I'm in now.