Upon completion of the curricula the diver's certification receives a Specialized Task .... advent of technical/mixed gas diving at PIFSC in 1998, NDC provided ...
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The Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Dive Program: Meeting the Challenges of the Pacific Region Raymond Boland Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, NMFS 2570 Dole St. Honolulu, HI. 96822 Abstract The National Marine Fisheries Service, Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center is the largest dive unit in the National Marine Fisheries Service. Over 40 divers from five programs use working and scientific dive operations to address protected species, fisheries, coral reefs and anthropogenic issues. Much of the diving is in remote locations and involves specialized techniques that require additional training beyond the basic NOAA Scientific/Working Diver certifications. PIFSC in consultation with NOAA Dive Center (NDC) has developed training curriculums that ready new divers and retrain experienced divers for the various tasks they are assigned. Curriculums exist for marine debris survey and removal, SCUBA towboarding and mooring installation and service. Upon completion of the curricula the diver’s certification receives a Specialized Task Endorsement (STE) for the specific operation. Due to the remoteness of dive sites, or decompression operations a chamber is required by NOAA. Fielding the chamber and necessary support staff is a challenge to the center. Collaborative expertise pulled from the Navy, Army, NOAA, and PIFSC staff is often how this requirement is met.
Introduction The Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) dive program operating area is the Pacific Ocean. The center operates from Honolulu, Hawaii with its jurisdiction extends west to Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands, south to American Samoa, and east to the equatorial islands. Deep water is quickly found near these islands, with water being 1000’s of feet deep within 2-3 miles of the shoreline. Because of their mid-ocean location, these small islands are affected by open ocean currents and sea states. Frequently the sites are remote, usually days away from any major medical support. Often the food webs of these remote sites are dominated by large sharks and jacks. Immediate dive support is primarily provided by small craft (17-20 feet) with a large research vessel (220-240 feet) acting as a mother ship. The mother ship is the major support platform, and has a hyperbaric chamber with trained medical personnel, large compressors and banks for filling SCUBA tanks and in some cases the capability to blend gases for nitrox and trimix. Because the archipelagos are large and remote, research cruises are a minimum of 20 days and may last as long as 3 months. The PIFSC dive program is nested within the NOAA Diving Program (NDP) and adheres to the NDP regulations. In the NDP, there are two types of diving: Scientific and Working. The Scientific Diver rating is given to divers that meet the basic standards set forth by the NDP and is limited to the gathering of data through diver observation that is noted by hand or
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Diving For Science 2005 Proceedings Of The American Academy Of Underwater Sciences
is recorded using photography or videography. Working Divers have to attend the NOAA Working Diver class, which is conducted by the NOAA Dive Center, or be a graduate of a military or commercial dive school, or have substantial experience in the performance of working dives. Working divers use tools to accomplish a task underwater such as hull inspections, lifting heavy objects with lift bags, coring and other light commercial dive projects.
PIFSC Diving Program The PIFSC dive program has been supporting research needs in the Pacific Basin since the 1980s when it was called the Honolulu Laboratory. The current diving staff consists of 43 biologists and technicians who have met the NOAA requirements for Scientific or Working diving and conduct dives in support of their primary duties. A dive supervisory group consists of NOAA divemasters and a Unit Diving Supervisor (UDS). The UDS oversees all diving operations conducted at the center, maintains all records, conducts training, and petitions for reciprocities with other dive programs. There are several research programs at PIFSC that employ diving for their projects (Table1). Table 1: List of Programs and their projects that employ diving.
Program Fisheries and Oceanography Programs Ecosystems and Oceanography Division Protected Species Division
Scientific Diving Fish observations and handling. Benthic habitat surveys, ecosystem surveys. Hawaiian Monk seal forage base surveys. Turtle surveys and tagging Ecosystems Biological surveys, bottom topography surveys and marine debris surveys.
Working Diving Oceanographic instrument support. Archival instrument support. Archival instrument support.
Coral Reef Divisions
Oceanographic instrument support and marine debris recovery.
In addition to these projects, PIFSC has also evaluated dive equipment in cooperation with NDC. Divers have evaluated dive computers, technical dive equipment, and software decompression and gas mixing. The technical dive program at PIFSC has developed technical dive protocols (Parrish, F.A. 1999), conducted comparative studies between closed circuit systems and open circuit systems (Parrish, F.A. 2000. and Parrish, F.A. and Pyle. 2002) and support future advanced diving initiatives. Nearly all of the research diving at the PIFSC is conducted from large NOAA research vessels and contract vessels at remote sites that are often deep and usually far from both emergency and diving support centers. A primary challenge to these operations has been crafting dive accident management contingencies.
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Diving For Science 2005 Proceedings Of The American Academy Of Underwater Sciences
When PIFSC began using SCUBA at the limits of conventional diving (90ft-130ft) in 1990 on remote banks in the NWHI, NDC provided training and equipment for in water oxygen recompression to provide treatment options in the event a diver became bent. With the advent of technical/mixed gas diving at PIFSC in 1998, NDC provided decompression tables, and assisted in creating decompression dive protocols. Initially hyperbaric chamber support from the US Navy was used and later, NDC refurbished a monoplace hyperbaric recompression chamber. The number of divers and dives conducted on research cruises tripled from 1999 to 2000. Routine cruises expanded to include Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, American Samoa and the equatorial islands. Recognizing the need for treatment facilities, NDC began to provide portable multilock chambers to the research vessels for emergency treatments. Presently NDC has one portable multiplace chamber system which is completely containerized. A second containerized system is being fabricated for cruises occurring later this year.
Development of Diving Techniques and Training In order to accomplish studies or gather data, PIFSC has developed, refined and employed unique diving techniques. Divers who wish to employ these techniques must first meet the prerequisites and undergo the required training (Table 2). One of the first projects that employed divers and new techniques was a study conducted on juvenile snappers. Table 2: Dive Operations and their training requirements.
OPERATION Marine Debris STE
PRE-REQUISITES TRAINING LIMITATIONS 40+ dives 20 hours classroom Depth
