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Today I am headed to Anticosti  Island off of Quebec, Canada. I took a flight to Montreal yesterday, and now I am up at 4:30am to catch a small plane to Port Menier, the town in Anticosti. Anticosti Island is unlike any other place, with a population of 200, 350 miles of beautiful coastline, and 160,000 deer. It is sure to be a spectacular place. The only other people on my flight were a group of ladies going on a yoga retreat. They helped me translate some announcements as I don’t understand french. It was my first time being on a small flight like this, they even gave us earplugs. We stopped at Quebec City to refuel, and made it to Anticosti by 11am. I saw Michel and Julie at the fence of the airport waiting for me right when we landed. Michel Labrecque and Julie Ouimet are owners of Anticosti Ecotours, which is a branch of their company N2Pix. They run excursions, both on land and underwater with Anticosti Ecotours, and I will be joining them for the next 8 days to both dive and explore the island. I feel very lucky that I get the opportunity to dive here as only 24 divers are able to per season. And this was their first season!

Today we won’t be diving because of potential rain, so instead I will be exploring the island. Michel is leading a tour for two others at 2pm, and I will be joining. First I brought my bag up to the extra room that they have that I will be staying in and it is so beautiful. There is a view of the water!

I grabbed my camera and Michel and I picked up the two others and headed to the West side of the Island. We went to the Boulay Waterfalls, Bay St. Clair, the Calou Wreck, L’anse-aux-Fraises, and Cap-de-la-Vache-Qui-Pisse. It started to rain hard at the waterfalls, but it made it even better.

Bay St. Clair is where the old town used to be. When Henri Menier bought the island, he decided he wanted the town elsewhere and tore everything down. There are still some remnants of house structures though. There was a really friendly deer hanging around and I got to feed him a flower. I felt like Snow White.

We then drove over to the Wreck of the Calou. This is a wooden ship that is beached fully out of the water, not too far from town. We walked all around it and even inside through an opening at the stern. 

After that we headed to these beautiful cliffs. There were so many fossils that had been exposed by the erosion of the cliffs. I walked the whole beach looking for fossils and also collected a TON of sea urchin shells. I wanted to make an art project out of them later. 

We drove back, and probably saw around 50 deer. Before dinner we went to where Julie and Michel store their boat, and prepped all the dive gear for the next day. The space that was available to store their boat is actually an ice rink where they normally store a zamboni. I analyzed my nitrox, set up my gear, and loaded weight into my BCD weight pockets and weight belt. Michel and Julie also made sure the boat was functioning and prepared well for the next day. 

We got back and had a version of poutine for dinner and then went to bed. This was a long day for me, and I want to get a good night’s rest before diving tomorrow!

My time working with Rick has come to an end. So sad! Today we will be heading to Greenwich Connecticut to work on a Dam. Rick was called on this job to do an inspection of the Dam, and I got to help. To start, Rick threw dye tablets in the water to see if he could see any areas where water was seeping through, and out the other side. These tablets turned a fluorescent green color, so we could track the movement of the water easily. There didn’t seem to be any troubled areas from this initial test, so Rick got suited up to dive and inspect it underwater. He would be diving surface supply, which means the air he was breathing came from tanks on the surface and he was wearing a Superlight mask which allowed him to talk to us through a communication box we had on the surface. This communication was very useful as he was able to tell us problem areas and we could mark them in chalk on the top of the dam. I was in charge of feeding him the umbilical, which is the tubing that feeds him air from the service. If he had too much slack then it could become tangled, and if he had too little then he wouldn’t be able to move well. So I had to make sure I was pulling it up and giving him more as needed based on where he was at the dam. He brought a gopro in with him so that he could show the engineer if there were problem areas. Inspecting the deeper part of the dam went smoothly, but when he started doing the shallower part there were quite a few cracks in the stone that would suck water in. Through the communication box, he asked for us to toss him some more dye tablets so that he could place them in front of the crack and track where the water was leading. There were multiple cracks/little holes, and Rick put the green tablet in each of them. The downside of this is that once the green dye showed up on the other side, we weren’t exactly sure which hole they came from. If they were to want to pinpoint this issue, they could either space out when they put the dye in, or use a different color dye. The point of the inspection though was just to address any issues. Once Rick was out of the water, we made our way down to the gate house, where the water was coming out of the dam. The engineer, Alex, realized there were little rocks in the stream of water there that weren’t there last time he was here, so they must have been coming from somewhere else. We tracked it down to the other gatehouse or the entrance of this one, and decided the rocks likely weren’t coming from inside the dam. I really enjoyed the whole process of problem solving that revolves around Rick’s job in commercial diving. We finished that job up earlier than expected, and got lunch with Alex.     

Overall, I really enjoyed my time training and working with a commercial diver. My time with Rick this week has made me realize that this side of diving is appealing to me, and I want to explore it more in the future. 

Rick and I drove to his boat this morning and met up with his father, Eric. Today we will be diving two wrecks! The original plan was to head to the wreck of the Volund but since itwas pretty overcast and the wind was supposed to pick up, we decided the wreck of the Onondaga in Watch Hill Rhode Island was a better decision. This wreck is in about 50 feet of water, and usually has better visibility. Rick and Eric had put a mooring off of the Onondaga so that it was easier to find this season. When we got to the mooring above the wreck, we waited a little bit until the tide was closer to switching and becoming slack as it would be an easier dive for me. I haven’t dove a wreck in New England, so I was very excited! Eric went down first for about a 30 minute dive. Before he surfaced, Rick and I got into our drysuits and were ready to go so that once Eric was on the surface we could hop right in. The current was still moving pretty strong at this point (or at least strong compared to what I have dove in before). We back rolled off the side of the boat while holding a rope so we didn’t float away, and then transferred over to another line that was hanging from the stern to the bow of the boat so we could safely make our way down the mooring line. We descended holding on to the mooring line since the current was strong and we would have had trouble finding the wreck if we had just descended with no guidance. The mooring was attached to the boiler of the ship. I tied off a reel to the end of the mooring and Rick tied off a flashing light. This light was for safety. If we were to get separated, and couldn’t find each other after a minute of searching, we would head back to the mooring line and surface. If the light is there, you take it with you, so that if your buddy comes to the anchor line they know you have surfaced. It is just another form of safety and communication underwater.

With the reel in hand, we headed to the stern of the Onondaga. This is a wreck that you can take artifacts from, so Rick was showing me how to fan the sand to reveal things, as there is over 100 years of sand and mud piled on top of the artifacts. We found a lot of broken china at first. And then, after fanning a spot like Rick showed me, I found a bobbin that would’ve been used for sewing! It is wooden, and can fit in the palm of my hand. Rick got a video of me finding the bobbin too. In another area I found the sole of a shoe, and Rick found a full intact shoe. It was like a mens size 14. It looked like a clown shoe.
Nobody died in this wreck. The Onondaga ran aground on the reef, and all its crew were able to evacuate before the ship went down, but it took all its cargo with it. We kept searching until we reached the end of our dive and used the same mooring line to surface. Eric helped us out of the water and we headed to the next dive site. This was going to be the wreck of the Atlantic. The wind had picked up quite a bit though so it was hard to get our anchor to stay in one place. Rick and I got suited up and went to the anchor line and descended. Rick moved the anchor into a place where it would hold well for us, and then we tied off our reel and headed to the wreck. It was a little swim away since we couldn’t get the anchor to stay. As we were swimming there, the reel came to the end of its line, which is 185 feet of line. We had decided to use the reel for navigation, so we couldn’t go farther than it would reach, so we didn’t make it to the wreck. We explored the substrate and saw a lot of starfish and looked for lobsters underneath rocks. We headed back to the boat by reeling the reel in and using the anchor line to surface the same way we did on the previous dive.

That was it for our day of diving so we brought the boat back to the slip. Rick let me drive a little bit on the way back, but I couldn’t dock, made me nervous. We unloaded everything and headed back home but made a pit stop at New England Dive Center in Wallingford Connecticut. Rick said he needed to pick something up, so I looked around the shop at all their gear and hung out with their really cute dog. The piece of gear Rick had to pick up was actually for me, and it is something that I had debated upgrading as I had been borrowing Ricks for the dives today. I was shocked and so happy and grateful that Rick got this piece of gear for me, and it will serve me well in all my diving endeavors! Thank you Rick! 

Back at the house I helped do chores (basically petting their dog and donkey, I wasn’t super helpful), had a really great dinner at a local restaurant, and then unloaded and prepped all our gear for tomorrow. I had a great day of diving with Rick and Eric, and am sad that tomorrow is my last day here.

Today I will be heading to work with Rick at his company Shoreline Diving Services. We grabbed some tanks and headed to Rick’s boat which is kept about an hour from his house. There I met Elliot who would be tending, which means he is staying on the boat while we dive and making sure everything is running smoothly. The first job was cleaning the bottom of a 68 foot Riva, which is a really nice yacht. We used these power scrubbers and went underneath and on all the sides and got all the grime off. I was in my drysuit, as I want to get as much experience in it this week as I can, but I was definitely pretty hot at the surface. Some waves came in too, which made it harder to get the sides but the bottom was basically spotless when we got there. I took the two scrubbers back to the boat and Rick did a final inspection before wrapping up. The captain of the boat was very nice and kept the boat in great condition. 

After this job, we went to another job, but for a commercial fisherman this time. He was having a problem with his boat overheating so he called Rick up and asked him to take a look underneath. When we got under the boat, there was a ton of rope tangled in the prop. Like probably over 300 feet! Not ideal for the fisherman and his boat, but it was an insane experience to help Rick remove it all. I held the light for him so he could see the rope since it was darker down there, and he worked to cut through it and untangle it as he went. The picture below shows just how much we brought up. It was surreal to be holding on to the prop of a boat while it was in the water, especially one that was the size of me. Plenty of safety measures are taken though, to make sure nobody starts the boat or any other switches while we are under there. This wasn’t even the problem that the boat owner called us about though. The bottom of the boat was covered in mussels, like everywhere. This slowed down the boat, and made it so that some of its sensors didn’t work so well and caused the overheating. After this we had one more job, which was inspecting a mooring line. We got all geared up, and held on to the mooring line as we went down as there was really bad visibility. This was only about four feet though, and we were feeling the chain to make sure it was the correct thickness in the correct places. The sand can erode it down, so they need to be inspected for their integrity.

This was a great day of working, and my favorite part was helping to cut out the rope from the commercial fishing boats prop. We ended the day with Italian food (my favorite) at a local restaurant. Rick and I went and filled up a couple tanks at his Dads house before the end of the day. Tomorrow we will be diving a wreck, I am wicked excited!

After Rick and his wife Erins horses got their hooves trimmed, Rick and I headed to Brownstone Quarry. Rick decided this was a good place for us to start as it would be my first day diving in my drysuit. Rick’s good friend Ed Hayes, who is co-owner of Brownstone Quarry and Adventure Park kindly let us come and dive for the day. This place was so cool! There were zip-lines, inner-tubes, a beach, and a ton other things that made it resemble a water park. We were tucked in a cove that was reserved for diving. Back at Rick’s house I had analyzed our nitrox tanks and labeled them as I learned to do in the classroom portion of getting nitrox certified. We brought all our heavy equipment down to a picnic table near the water, and suited up halfway by the car. Even walking down to the water I started to sweat, which is a good thing as it will keep me super warm at depth. I borrowed a hood from Rick as I didn’t have one, and got all suited up. As I put on my gloves, I realized they had a big hole down the seam as the string had slowly been unraveling from previous dives. It’s alright though because the water isn’t crazy cold today.

Before putting our scuba gear on, we hopped in the water in just our drysuits to feel the difference compared to a wetsuit. I could feel the compression, and practiced adding and dumping air from the suit. I also flipped on my belly with my feet up and then would try to get my feet back down, and it was much harder than usual as all the air gets trapped at the feet when they are the highest part of the body. We got our scuba gear on and descended and swam around a little so I could get comfortable with the suit and the more limited visibility. I don’t have experience diving in New England, so the visibility is something I need to get comfortable with and understand the added measures in order to stay safe. One of those is a reel. It is basically like the part of a fishing pole you hold, but the line is rope. I started by tying off the rope to a mooring line and then continued in a direction until I came across a car. Yes, there were two sunken cars in the part of the quarry we were diving in! I then wrapped the line around a piece of the car so that the line was taught, and continued on. This is so that in limited visibility we can always find our way back to the anchor line (the anchor line would be the mooring line in this situation). We will be doing this on our deep dive on a wreck on Thursday. We also practiced what to do if the air in my drysuit goes to my feet and I start floating up feet first. I simulated that, and then continued to do a full 360 making sure I ended with my feet down so that the air could come back up to my shoulder and be released. We practiced tying and releasing a surface marker buoy, as well as holding myself in one spot and keeping good buoyancy. I was not so great at staying in one spot and tended to move my fins to try to keep myself in the same spot, which just moved me more. I am going to try to get better at controlling my buoyancy throughout the week. We did two dives in the quarry, and I am super grateful to Ed Hayes for letting us dive for the day.

On the way home, Rick and I stopped at Divers Cove and saw their drysuit repair facility and spoke with Ed and Chris, the owners of the shop. I was in need of a few extra dive gear pieces as I have an upcoming internship opportunity in cold water. Rick got me a new 5/7 hood, semi dry gloves, a knife, and a light. I am so grateful to Rick for getting these items for me, and I am excited to use them tomorrow and on my future dives. I end this day feeling more confident that I will know how to react in a situation. I can deploy a surface marker buoy, and by thoroughly planning my dives ahead of time I know how long I can stay at our targeted maximum depth (without just relying on my dive computer), and I know the maximum operating depth of the specific gas blend I am on. I had a great day, and I am looking forward to learning even more tomorrow!

Today I started my training with Rick Simon in Connecticut. Rick was the second Boston Sea Rover Intern in 2005. Now, he trains a lot of the newest interns by getting them more comfortable diving and gaining further certifications. This week I will be getting my advanced certification, which will include specialties in wreck diving, nitrox, underwater navigation, limited visibility, and deep diving. I will also be doing all this training in my drysuit given to me by the internship sponsor Fourth Element. Thank you Fourth Element! This first day consisted of finishing the textbook part of the class, as it was thunder storming so we couldn’t dive. We went through algorithms and ways to plan out a dive to feel safer and more prepared. I set up all my gear and Rick helped fix the way I did some things to make me look more professional. We went to his shop and borrowed a reel, SMB, and J hook knife as we will be using all of them this week. We will be diving on multiple wrecks in the area, and I even get to go on a job with him to clean the bottom of a super yacht! Rick and his wife Erin also life on a farm so I got to see all their animals, and beautiful horses. So excited for this week of diving, and learning to dive safe and prepared.

 

Instead of driving home after the day at the GOT, I drove to Dan and Dawn Dolans house in Hingham Massachusetts. Dan Dolan used to work full time at the New England Aquarium in the GOT, but due to covid now works part time at their offsite Husbandry Facility in Quincy. Since I would be going in to work with him on Saturday, it was best to stay the night there. Dan and Dawn took me out to a wonderful restaurant and I swear they knew the entire town! So many people approached them, it was a very friendly night. I had the best gnocchi pasta with a bolognese sauce that their friend who worked there recommended. After dinner we went to a local concert that their town has each Friday night and met some more friends and got to see the marina. I was exhausted from the week so I ended up going to bed early but it was a great night.

The next morning Dan and I drove into Quincy which was very close to his house which was so convenient. Aside from the husbandry, this is where the sea turtles are rehabilitated that get cold stunned off of the Cape during November and December. Dan gave me a tour and introduced me to the people he works with, and then I went to work in the sea turtle rehabilitation area all morning.

I worked with Colleen, a volunteer in this department, as the staff had to respond to a situation in the Cape. I started by cleaning all the toys and structures that were in the tanks and Colleen vacuumed. Once that was done we got to prep the food for each of the turtles. This consisted of cutting fish and squid. I was very good at de-beaking and de-penning the squid this time as I had practice from the day before. Colleen let me feed some of the turtles and I was able to understand how they had to meet a certain weight of food, not exactly a certain amount of fish or squid. I loved this one turtle and hung out next to his tank for a long time since there was glass on one side to see him. We also went outside and down to the water to collect a live crab to feed one of the turtles. They were training some of the turtles to catch their own live food as they were close to being released back into the ocean. I had a great morning learning about cold stunned turtles, and headed over to the Husbandry side for the afternoon. I have to mention, I had the best sandwich of my life at lunch. Dawn picked them up for us and it was just an amazing sandwich, with a perfect amount of every ingredient.

After lunch I helped feed the stingrays which was so fun! They were trained to swim to the surface to feed, and they suctioned to your hand to get the piece of food. Each stingray was fed out of a different container though, so I had to make sure I was identifying each of them correctly so they got fed the right amount.

I was also able to prepare chemicals that would be put into a drip into some tanks in order to regulate them. It was great to be able to actively help, and not just observe. Dan and I put our wetsuits on and got into the other tank that had stingrays as well. We cleaned the sides and tried to even out the sand in the center of the tank. No intern has been able to get in the water here, so it was a special experience! We ended the day with pizza, and I got to meet Dan and Dawn’s granddaughter! I felt very welcomed by them, and had a great stay. My time at the New England Aquarium has come to an end, but I hope to keep in touch with people I met and possibly become an intern here if I am living near Boston . I would love to work in Galleries or Penguins in the future!

Woohoo it Friday, and that means I get to dive in the Giant Ocean Tank!! This was supposed to be last Saturday but got moved around due a small covid outbreak. I am so excited! I did my morning commute to Boston, and brought all my dive gear with me. I headed right up to the Giant Ocean Tank (GOT) area and met the two interns that would be helping me that day. Doug was a year older than me, and would be showing me around as he was the most experienced. We started in the food prep room, and I worked with Mike O’neill on prepping food for half of the animals, while the other interns worked on the rest. It was very similar to how food was prepped in the Marine Mammals department. The one thing that was new was that I had to de-beak and de-pen the squid. I did this by squeezing out the beak like a pimple, which was pretty straightforward, but getting rid of the pen was much harder. I probably removed 3 pens in the time it took Mike to remove 7. The pen is this clear hard piece of the squid that is a few inches long. It is on the inside of the squid and lies under the part where the squid is darker in color. It was important to remove it as it is harder for the turtles to digest (I believe, there may have been another reason too).

Once we prepped the food, I got to go out and feed Myrtle the Green Sea Turtle. She is giant, around 70-90 years old, and around 590 pounds. She started with lettuce, as in the wild she would be eating seagrass. However, lettuce does not have all the benefits that seagrass does, so she is also fed some fish and squid to supplement that. We started with lettuce, as once she tastes the fish she has no interest in the lettuce anymore. She also gets fed a squid taco. This is a squid with three or four fish stuffed inside with her medications also inside. The medications are things like vitamins that she is missing by not eating what she would in the wild.

After the feeding, I got suited up for my dive in the GOT. We talked about how it would go and Mike and I hopped in. We did a lap around the tank without my camera to make sure I felt comfortable, and then I grabbed my camera. My mom got to come and watch me do this which was special because she has never seen me dive before. It was so fun to wave to the kids through the glass and be surrounded by so many creatures. We even scratched Myrtles back as she loves that. Mike was a great host and made sure my mom was able to get lots of pictures of me in the tank. After the dive, I showered off and went to lunch with my mom.

After lunch I fed Myrtle again, but this time the aquarium was open (in the morning the public wasn’t there to watch). I was asked questions about Myrtle and the GOT which other staff helped me answer as I was still learning. I helped the interns clean up the area and check off everything on the to-do list before we headed home. I had a great time at the Giant Ocean Tank. I honestly can’t decide which department has been my favorite as they are all so engaging and hands on. Tomorrow is my last day and I will be heading off site to Quincy!

I am working in the Marine Mammals department today! This includes the SeaLion and the Harbor Seal exhibits. I started by working with Caitlyn and Hailey, two interns from this department, in the food prep room. They showed me how to wash and disinfect dishes, read the charts for different animal food prep, and how each one liked their food cut. I loved working with the interns, they seemed like good friends by the end of the day.

I then got to go out and watch Mollie, one of the trainers, do some enrichment with one of the sea lions. There were also two divers in the exhibit cleaning, and this seemed like a regular part of their job. This sea lion was super timid and was the only one allowed to be on exhibit while there were divers in the water. The others would be too curious and bug the divers too much. I was super grateful to watch this enrichment, and I started to understand the different animals’ personalities and how that impacts their training.

Caitlyn and I then went over to the Harbor Seal exhibit with a big car wash type toy to do some enrichment with the seals. Unlike the sea lion exhibit, the Harbor Seals are visible to the public who haven’t paid to get inside the Aquarium and it is located right near where people waited to enter the facility. So, there were always plenty of people watching, and so many excited kids as this was their first look at what an aquarium has to offer. The Harbor Seals had feedings and training twice a day. This included listening to cues by their trainer, getting their teeth brushed, and one was even holding a paintbrush in her mouth and painting. The public loved that one.

Back in the main area, I was allowed to watch the Sea Lions get trained. They have specific trainers that are their primary person. For example, Serena (person) was Sierras (sea lion) primary. So when Serena was training her, Sierra listened and cooperated with her very well. The Sea Lions primary can’t always be there though, so they have a backup trainer. The Sea lion will be cooperative, but not quite as much as if it were their primary. This was demonstrated in the final feeding and training of the day. Serena was having Sierra do all kinds of movements to demonstrate their relationship, but the other trainer was having trouble as he was a backup to a backup of the sea lion he was working with. It was really interesting to see how much relationships have to do with these animals and how they act.

In between each session, the other interns and I would clean all the dishes and toys used and disinfect them, and make sure food was ready for the next session. We had some extra time, so one of the interns made jello molds to use as a toy for the sea lions. She said they don’t normally actually eat them, but they love to play with them. They even had emptied out a watermelon and filled it with jello and the sea lions were very intrigued by it. I had a great time working in the Marine Mammals department, and would have loved to be an actual intern for them for the summer!

Today I will be working in the Aquarium Medical Center. After a morning meeting, Charlie Innis who is the Director of Animal Health showed me around the area they work. We went up to necropsy and I was able to ask questions about procedures with different animals and he explained the medical side of an aquarium which I was much more unfamiliar with. I appreciated him explaining things to me, and now I have a better understanding of what they would do if an emergency situation arises. He showed me some of the labs where scientists are doing research. One in particular is trying to find a better way to get samples of hormones from animals without doing it through a blood or a urine sample. This is very hard to get on a large animal, like a whale. So they are finding ways to collect it through feces floating in the water, or even spray from a whale. I asked and he said that some scientists are trying to use drones to collect this spray, which I found very interesting. We discussed medicine as well. There isn’t a big market for medicine for animals that aren’t domesticated so they have to use estimations or compare to previous animals on how much medicine to give. I then got to talk with Nina Nahvi, who is the Aquarium Medical Center Manager. It was great to pick her brain about different career paths within marine science. They had a lot of work and meetings to do so Mike O’neill, from the Giant Ocean Tank, showed me around his department and explained how the dive in the Giant Ocean Tank would go on Friday. Ended the day early and was able to get some good rest as I will be working in Marine Mammals department tomorrow!