Saturday, May 12, 2007
Scrubbing, Part Deux
My shoulders still hurt. It’s been a week since I was at the aquarium last, and I’ve still got a vague ache at the base of my neck and in my forearms reminding me why I should’ve been actually going to the YMCA all this time instead of just hoping that paying membership dues would keep me fit.
They hurt because algae is far more tenacious than you might think. It is, in no way, floaty, settly, silty stuff. It’s more spam. Not the delicious, albeit suspicious kind. More like the normal kind. The kind that you just see one little speck of here and there in a new email address. Then, three days later, you could peck the delete button like you were in finals for The World Champion Deleter Person races but it just keeps coming. Algae grabs on and holds fast in a fuzzy, dark blanket of frustration.
Naturally, as Dick Blankfein is something of a sadist, he drops his volunteers into the water with toothbrushes to attack this scourge of the deep. Only two toothbrushes. We get two big brushes, too. Thing is, the big brushes aren’t really all that useful. Or maybe they are and I’m not all that useful. That has yet to be determined.
You know coral? How it’s all pretty and intricate and tiny and delicate? How it takes decades upon countless decades for these cous-cous sized creatures to develop into whichever of those elaborate designs their particular species is wont to do? The fake coral in the large reef displays looks like that too. Otherwise it wouldn’t be fake coral. It would be a fake toaster oven or a fake circus clown or what have you. So this fake coral has all these tiny crevices, nooks, crannies, swirls, holes, and other such places from which algae can mock you. Trying to brush at these tiny designs with the large brush is like trying to mow your lawn with a helicopter rotor. So the toothbrush it is.
(It’s not really a toothbrush. It’s a brush about 3 times the size of a toothbrush. So I suppose it could be a toothbrush if you were Harvey the Rabbit, but as far as I know, he’s not at the aquarium.)
“Ow,” I get around to thinking after about half an hour of scrubbing an area no bigger than a tree stump. Switching hands doesn’t do it anymore. Both forearms ache. The little pair of French Angelfish that keep hanging around right next to my head, watching intently what I’m up to, go from cheerful companions to unhelpful supervisors pretty quickly. Then there’s the Sergeant Major pecking at my calves like some sort of angry slave driver. Ill-tempered little jerks, those things.
All that lead that had me flopping around on the bottom during my in-water test proved weightily useful as… well… think about this. When you’re floating around with neutral buoyancy and you so much as poke a rock with one finger… you know how you go floating in the other direction with little to no effort? Yeah. You don’t want that to happen when you’re trying to force as much pressure to a large area as you can to liberally apply elbow grease. Thus it was that I gave up on trying to float, dumped all the air out of my wing, and just stood there, rooted to the bottom by about 30lbs. The same body position as though I were standing in the den, cleaning the cabinets. (Though, if my den were full of water and fish, I should say it would be some cause for alarm. Global warming accelerated, I suppose.)
I did my damnedest at trying to figure out how to clean the sea fans, but without pipe cleaners, there’s no way I can tell so far to get that bastard green stuff out of the holes that honeycomb the fan. After 15 minutes of my bashing at it, hopefully the fan looked only slightly less green than when I started.
I could feel sweat rolling down the bridge of my nose inside my mask when I think to look at my SPG.
“OK, been about 45 minutes.... 900 psi? That can’t be right.”
It’s only 10 feet of water. My SAC rate is usually around .4-.5. An AL80 should last me until about… tomorrow. Another bead of sweat rolls down my nose and with one deep breath I watch the digital pressure gauge drop 20 psi.
“I gotta quit smoking.”
Then there was the hull scrubber. Different day. Different tank of air. Still breathed it down to nothing in no time flat. Because using the hull scrubber is much like buffing the floor… if, instead of the floor, you decided to pick the machine up and buff the wall. Add to this the fact that as the buffing/brush part spins, the machine would makes it abundantly clear that it would far rather be spinning you round and round in circles than to be bothered to spin some part of itself. I guess it figures that if it was your idea for something to spin, you might as well be the one doing it.
A little tired, a little sore, ego a little bruised for being a little out of breath both days, I climbed out of the pool.
A shower. Carrying the 50-pound box of gear back out to my car. Thinking of all the rinsing and the draining and the cleaning that has to be done to all that gear to keep it working right.
I walked back to the display windows of the tank to see what we’d accomplished that day so that I could smile and know that it was worth it.
I couldn’t see a thing.
The water was so mucked up by the algae we’d kicked around that you could only really see the front bits of the habitat. Which were covered with that very same holdfast algae.
But the visitors were there. And they didn’t care. They were just as fascinated by the fish at the front of the glass as they would be with the fish towards the back they’d see when the sediment settled. And I knew that when it settled, the back wall that we’d taken turns hull-scrubbing would be clean. For a while at least. And the coral head that we’d scrubbed with those toothbrushes would be brighter and as vibrant as real coral. For a while, at least.
I smiled. It was worth it. And then some. And I get to go do it again. Those front coral heads need attention.
Oh, and I’ve gone to the gym every day this week.
They hurt because algae is far more tenacious than you might think. It is, in no way, floaty, settly, silty stuff. It’s more spam. Not the delicious, albeit suspicious kind. More like the normal kind. The kind that you just see one little speck of here and there in a new email address. Then, three days later, you could peck the delete button like you were in finals for The World Champion Deleter Person races but it just keeps coming. Algae grabs on and holds fast in a fuzzy, dark blanket of frustration.
Naturally, as Dick Blankfein is something of a sadist, he drops his volunteers into the water with toothbrushes to attack this scourge of the deep. Only two toothbrushes. We get two big brushes, too. Thing is, the big brushes aren’t really all that useful. Or maybe they are and I’m not all that useful. That has yet to be determined.
You know coral? How it’s all pretty and intricate and tiny and delicate? How it takes decades upon countless decades for these cous-cous sized creatures to develop into whichever of those elaborate designs their particular species is wont to do? The fake coral in the large reef displays looks like that too. Otherwise it wouldn’t be fake coral. It would be a fake toaster oven or a fake circus clown or what have you. So this fake coral has all these tiny crevices, nooks, crannies, swirls, holes, and other such places from which algae can mock you. Trying to brush at these tiny designs with the large brush is like trying to mow your lawn with a helicopter rotor. So the toothbrush it is.
(It’s not really a toothbrush. It’s a brush about 3 times the size of a toothbrush. So I suppose it could be a toothbrush if you were Harvey the Rabbit, but as far as I know, he’s not at the aquarium.)
“Ow,” I get around to thinking after about half an hour of scrubbing an area no bigger than a tree stump. Switching hands doesn’t do it anymore. Both forearms ache. The little pair of French Angelfish that keep hanging around right next to my head, watching intently what I’m up to, go from cheerful companions to unhelpful supervisors pretty quickly. Then there’s the Sergeant Major pecking at my calves like some sort of angry slave driver. Ill-tempered little jerks, those things.
All that lead that had me flopping around on the bottom during my in-water test proved weightily useful as… well… think about this. When you’re floating around with neutral buoyancy and you so much as poke a rock with one finger… you know how you go floating in the other direction with little to no effort? Yeah. You don’t want that to happen when you’re trying to force as much pressure to a large area as you can to liberally apply elbow grease. Thus it was that I gave up on trying to float, dumped all the air out of my wing, and just stood there, rooted to the bottom by about 30lbs. The same body position as though I were standing in the den, cleaning the cabinets. (Though, if my den were full of water and fish, I should say it would be some cause for alarm. Global warming accelerated, I suppose.)
I did my damnedest at trying to figure out how to clean the sea fans, but without pipe cleaners, there’s no way I can tell so far to get that bastard green stuff out of the holes that honeycomb the fan. After 15 minutes of my bashing at it, hopefully the fan looked only slightly less green than when I started.
I could feel sweat rolling down the bridge of my nose inside my mask when I think to look at my SPG.
“OK, been about 45 minutes.... 900 psi? That can’t be right.”
It’s only 10 feet of water. My SAC rate is usually around .4-.5. An AL80 should last me until about… tomorrow. Another bead of sweat rolls down my nose and with one deep breath I watch the digital pressure gauge drop 20 psi.
“I gotta quit smoking.”
Then there was the hull scrubber. Different day. Different tank of air. Still breathed it down to nothing in no time flat. Because using the hull scrubber is much like buffing the floor… if, instead of the floor, you decided to pick the machine up and buff the wall. Add to this the fact that as the buffing/brush part spins, the machine would makes it abundantly clear that it would far rather be spinning you round and round in circles than to be bothered to spin some part of itself. I guess it figures that if it was your idea for something to spin, you might as well be the one doing it.
A little tired, a little sore, ego a little bruised for being a little out of breath both days, I climbed out of the pool.
A shower. Carrying the 50-pound box of gear back out to my car. Thinking of all the rinsing and the draining and the cleaning that has to be done to all that gear to keep it working right.
I walked back to the display windows of the tank to see what we’d accomplished that day so that I could smile and know that it was worth it.
I couldn’t see a thing.
The water was so mucked up by the algae we’d kicked around that you could only really see the front bits of the habitat. Which were covered with that very same holdfast algae.
But the visitors were there. And they didn’t care. They were just as fascinated by the fish at the front of the glass as they would be with the fish towards the back they’d see when the sediment settled. And I knew that when it settled, the back wall that we’d taken turns hull-scrubbing would be clean. For a while at least. And the coral head that we’d scrubbed with those toothbrushes would be brighter and as vibrant as real coral. For a while, at least.
I smiled. It was worth it. And then some. And I get to go do it again. Those front coral heads need attention.
Oh, and I’ve gone to the gym every day this week.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Watch the Bubbles
We've covered a lot of ground here in the Dive Evangelist since first debuting this blog back in January. My compadres and I have waxed philosophical, political, whimsical and satirical on everything from dive logs and safety sausages to dolphin slaughters and shark finning. These topics are important. We need to dive safely, we have to be stewards of the environment in which we play, we should strive to keep learning every time we dive.
But every now and then, I like to go back to basics, to remind myself why these things matter to me. Why I care about the horrors of shark finning, the dangers of DCS and the state of my equipment and knowledge. The reason: I love diving. It's that simple. I can't get enough of it. And we've got an enthusiastic membership almost 800-strong that shares that love. I'm sure more than a few of you visit this blog often, wondering when it will be updated, or visit the Oceanblue Divers site, hoping to see a new event posted. You too love diving.
While it's important to think of the big picture -- the environmental, political and safety issues related to diving -- as we enjoy this wonderful sport, we should also remember the simple joy it brings. Just as we need to occasionally stop to smell the roses in our daily lives, in our hobby we need to occasionally stop to watch the bubbles.
But every now and then, I like to go back to basics, to remind myself why these things matter to me. Why I care about the horrors of shark finning, the dangers of DCS and the state of my equipment and knowledge. The reason: I love diving. It's that simple. I can't get enough of it. And we've got an enthusiastic membership almost 800-strong that shares that love. I'm sure more than a few of you visit this blog often, wondering when it will be updated, or visit the Oceanblue Divers site, hoping to see a new event posted. You too love diving.
While it's important to think of the big picture -- the environmental, political and safety issues related to diving -- as we enjoy this wonderful sport, we should also remember the simple joy it brings. Just as we need to occasionally stop to smell the roses in our daily lives, in our hobby we need to occasionally stop to watch the bubbles.
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