Final ship wreck Dive (part 4)

Hi everyone

Well its our final day of diving on the ship wreck and everyone including myself were looking forward to getting into the water.

The following blog was written for me by R J Holman.

Hey guys it's Ed the bear and I am back! I woke up 5:00 am this morning to wash furry fur in the river. After my warm bath I felt I needed a little stretching, so I went to my yoga class at 6:00 am. It was just what I need besides the mean biting mosquitoes I got the right to boost for my day. After breakfast I went with my fellow YDWP (Youth Divers With Purpose) to Biscayne Bay National Park to finish up our in-situ drawing.

At once I got on the boat ready to get in the in the water because it was the last day of diving. Once I was in the water I got a little distracted by fish swimming around me but I got I back on my in-situ drawing. 

After my first dive I came up and have some lunch with friends. I had a delightful sub (the roll kind not the underwater type - Ed Bear) with roast beef, Swiss cheese, and top it off with sum good honey from pooh. Then it was time it get back in the water. My tummy was hurting little because I eat little bit too much good food but eventually dived in. 

This dive was all about going back over my drawings making sure everything is recorded right. After we finish diving today we went and have some delicious food provided by a fellow friend from YDWP at the park. I have had a fun exciting and interesting day today. I learned a lot and how to apply my knowledge to paper.

Great work everyone. A very busy but exciting and rewarding time. We had to fan the sea floor to expose the wreck and documenting the site using a ruler, pencil and slate with Mylar paper (special paper you can write on underwater). This type of diving it takes a lot of care and concentration as its important that everything is recorded accurately.

We all took part in underwater mapping and the complicated trilteration (the method archeologist use to map and measure the various sections of the wreck) and we were all up to the challenge.


But the fun is not over yet. Tomorrow we are going to help restore a damaged coral reef with Coral Restoration Foundation.

Ed helps Dive with Purpose to survey a ship wreck part 1

Hi all.


Well it takes a long time to write up all my experiences, check through all the photographs etc but at long last here is my first blog from my visit earlier in the year with dive with Purpose.

Well I have arrived in the USA to help out with two very important project. First I will be helping the youths from Dive with Purpose in an ongoing project to document a ship wreck and then I will be helping them, restore a coral reef. I can’t wait to get in the water again. My diving bell is too big to transport to the UK and so I only get to explore underwater properly when I am in the USA.

 

Sharing  a ginger beer with Ken Stewart Director of Dive with Purpose

This will all be new to the Youths so I will get to learn what we need to do at the same time. I did learn about protecting and monitoring shipwrecks back in 2012 when I visited South African Heritage Resource Agency http://adventuresofedthebear.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/learning-about-how-to-study-shipwrecks.html

Here I am with Ken Stewart and the superintendent at Biscayne National Park Brian Carlstrom

 Charles Lawson who is the park archeologist 

Justine Benanty another archeologist

Dave Conlin the Submerger Office Chief


Before we can dive on the wreck we need to practice the necessary skills on land first. 
Everything will be much harder to do when we try to do it underwater.

Ed the Bear on the baseline. The base line  is used to measure the direction and location of an artifact or part of the ship structure.

The students will be using a survey method called trilateration which uses the Side-Side-Side (maths) Theorem to generate a map to scale of the shipwreck. Very complicated for a little bear like me, so I let the youths get started and I helped out where I was needed.

Ed trilsting with Joshua Harrison

Eric Solis

Madison Jack

Rachel Stewart

Julian Perez

Surveying wreck sites used to be done by laying a grid over the wreck and then recording the details in each square. The trilateration technique of mapping doesn’t require permanent grids

Everyone knew what they needed to do and the activity was accomplished with some great team work. 

 Ed and Olivia Ferenczy with insitu (onsite) drawings

 

Tomorrow we will do it all again, this time underwater on a real ship wreck.

I spent some time working with one of the youths Adrian Baptiste and he wrote the following blog entry.

Adrian Baptiste

Ed the bear here checking in. Just had another awesome day here at YDWP and I can't wait to tell you about it!. So I started my day off with some morning yoga taught by Mr.Kamau, the class was really helpful and loosened my muscles up and got me going. 

The class started at 6:00 and I got to watch the sun go up while I stretched. Later I had some breakfast and went to Biscayne National Park  to do some class work so that I know what to do tomorrow when I go on my first dive. The instructors taught us how to use the metric system and how to do trilaterations and much more. You would normally think that being in a classroom all day would be very boring, but It wasn't, the teachers were very engaging and really made sure that everyone knew the content. 

So as the day continued there were occurrences where a crab would walk into the classroom; now let me remind you that we are in Florida and there is aquatic life everywhere so I guess it's a normal thing down here. So every time a crab would come in there were always someone  who got up to catch them, it was so funny seeing kids run around the classroom getting pinched just to get it out of the classroom, these events only happened a couple of times and after the we continued.

After we listened to all the information the instructors taught us we went straight to practicing outside. 

Practicing was very fun but I couldn't stand getting bitten by all the Mosquitos that were out there today, They were everywhere and I couldn't stand them I basically bathed in bug spray and I needed to get away from them, once  it was time to leave I rushed to the car and was so grateful to get away. 

When I left the park it was around 6:00 the group had dinner at Denny's and I left most of the group to have and early night and to come back to write to all of you. I hope you enjoyed to my post and excited to tell you what happens tomorrow, so this is Ed the bear signing out.