It’s true. There is nothing quite like the state of North Carolina. Here you can find some of the best universities for Marine Sciences. There are islands and quarries to dive into. You can see dozens of shipwrecks, visit some awesome aquariums, and find amazing people doing some amazing things! Not to mention, of course, the stalwart and trusted Divers Alert Network (DAN) is here too!
For me personally, visiting North Carolina was a must. Not only are there some OWUSS scholarship legends here, but one of my best friends, Catherine Harris, had conveniently started a job working at DAN. Since almost the start of my year, Cat had been asking me when I was going to stop by DAN to visit during my scholarship year and after figuring out some things with my Southeast Coordinator, Patty Seery, I could finally let her know that I was coming through. After doing our drysuit and ice diving certifications together before the scholarship, it looked like Cat, her son Ikaika, (and the great puppers Napoleon) and I were going to be hanging out again in her new home of North Carolina at DAN!
Hanging out with Cat, her son Ikaika, and Napoleon
The first order of business was going to DAN to do some training. I was excited to see where the legendary organization and the home of dive safety resided. In my mind, DAN was going to be a giant corporation with tons of buildings, floors, and employees. However, when I arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was just a simple, singular building with three floors and a small band of people that kept things running. When I got inside, my training started immediately with Professional Cylinder Inspectors, Mark Gresham. Thanks to Mark, who works as the active CEO of PCI, I got to jump in on a class doing valve repair, visual cylinder inspections, and oxygen cleaning at DAN. Over the three-day course, I learned so much from Mark and got to practice identifying the tell-tell signs of when a tank needs servicing or when it simply needs to be condemned.
After my time with Mark, I then got to go around DAN and meet all of the wonderful and amazing people that make DAN so amazing. I first met with Francois Burman who is the director of Underwater & Hyperbaric Safety, Dr. Matias Nochetto, who is the director of Medical Services and Programs, Bill Ziefle, who is the President & CEO, Angela Williams, Shelly Wright, Brian Harper, Panchabi Vaithiyanathan, and Dr. Frauke Tillman, as well as the interns Grant Dong and Rhiannon Brenner. I really enjoyed meeting everyone and really got a sense of all the amazing things DAN does and stands for. It was honestly inspiring and I learned that DAN not only provides dive accident insurance for divers, but they also are involved with research, diver safety, general health, outreach, education, and journalism. They were an amazing bunch and it was incredible to see how even a small group of people can make a big difference in the world.
Once I had completed my classes and talked with everyone at DAN, I was on my way to meet with the incredible Dr. Craig Nelson, who works as a forensic pathologist, consulting on scuba diving incidents in collaboration with DAN and other organizations. As the 1996 OWUSS Rolex Scholar, Craig was kind enough to offer me the chance to dive with one of the most iconic and legendary assortments of dive equipment ever: The Mark V. The Mark V was the premier diving equipment of the Navy, used from 1916 till 1984, before SCUBA became the new way of diving while still breathing air.
Thanks, Craig!
Craig invited me to dive at JMR Quarry where he and his wife Kelly had a whole set-up for the Mark V equipment customized with a tent, radio, air pump, hoses, suit, helmet, weights, and lead boots. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Craig had two different Mark V’s that he had collected over the years and brought with him. I got suited up in the bronze one first and then the silver one. Craig and Kelly helped me get dressed in all of the overly heavy gear, putting on my weight belt, the lead boots, a communication and breathing hose, and finally the notorious bowl helmet. Once I had fully donned all this, Craig and Kelly closed the small door on the helmet and helped me into the water. Once I got in, everything was thankfully much lighter than how it felt on the surface. I was like an astronaut. I jumped around and laughed at myself as I said out loud, “One small step for man and one giant leap for mankind!” and kept saying, “Hiyah!” to hoist myself along. I was having so much fun that I forgot that both Craig and Kelly could hear all the conversations I was having with myself underwater so when I got back up to the surface Kelly, after hearing all of my “Hiyahs.” asked if I was fighting underwater ninjas down there. We all had such a fun time and experience together.
Me in the Mark V
However, it was made even more fun when, at our lunch break, Craig mentioned that he thought he saw the 2017 Rolex Scholar, Leah Potts, down by the dock. When we returned, sure enough there was Leah! She had traveled from Virginia and happened to come to that very quarry to help with a rebreather class. It was extremely serendipitous and I was amazed that now three Scholars happened to be in the same place at once by chance. I talked with Leah for a while about what she had been up to. As we talked, she divulged how bulky rebreather stuff was and mentioned that she wanted to try going in the opposite direction and do a freediving course. I tilted my head, intrigued, remembering times when I wished I could have been a better freediver, and let her know that if she took a class, I’d be interested in joining her. Not wanting to keep Craig waiting too long, though, we left it at that and I went over one last time to try another helmet out. We hung out and dove the rest of the day and it was honestly one of the most fun times I’ve had during my year… but there was still so much more to come.
Three Rolex Scholars: Leah, me, and Craig
Since I was diving old school, I thought I might as well see how they dealt with things like DCS (decompression sickness) or oxygen toxicity back then, too. The Center For Hyperbaric Medicine And Environmental Physiology was completed in 1968. Six large chambers were installed which gave the capacity to simulate depths of 1000 feet of seawater (fsw) and up to 100,000 feet of altitude. To see this, Cat took us to the Duke Hyperbaric Chambers in the basement of the Duke Medical building. I was amazed to see the Duke chambers up close. At the time, they were doing some groundbreaking studies conducted by the renowned Dr. Richard Moon and this team. Since the study is ongoing and results are still under analysis, I can’t go into too much detail, but it was an exciting experiment to observe.
My next adventures were thanks to my incredible Southeast Coordinator, Patty Seery! She was gracious enough to drive me three hours out to the coast where I would stay in the dorms of the marine science lab at UNC and work on my AAUS Scientific Diver course. While there, I got to tour around and meet with some of their researchers including Postdoc associate Rachelle Beattie as well as Postdoc Malcolm Barnard. It was cool to hear about all their research, including some really innovative work with COVID in the waterway system that they had been working on and reporting to the CDC since the start of the pandemic! We got to go over different parts of their respective research and talk about grad school, which was really nice. However, the bulk of my time was spent with Dr. Janelle Flemming, who functions as the science coordinator for Morehead City, NC, heads the NC SCUBAnauts chapter, and studies storms with her husband Jason.
Janelle and her family came up to meet us to discuss our plans for the scientific diver course. She was so kind and welcoming while I was there. She took me around the coast and talked about some of the cool things there. We then started our Scientific Diver training. My first obstacle was the swim test, which meant treading water, swimming laps, swimming the length of the pool, and more. Though I had done a swim test before, I always get a little nervous about it since I have feet that sink like anchors. I was worried and I struggled a bit at first, but I managed to get through it successfully! We moved on to the next tasks and did rescue operations, navigation, search and recovery, and more. I even had the honor of diving with some of the young North Carolina SCUBAnauts, a group of young teenagers who engage in underwater science. While I was with them they were kind enough to let me help in their coral restoration projects as well as their plastics project in which they investigated the algal growth on plastic. It was super fun to hang out with these kids and in turn, tell them about my scholarship (and share Pokemon Oreos). To see these kids in action was really inspiring for me and hopefully, I was able to inspire them too.
While I was with Janelle I also went out on the 409 foot-long Aeolus shipwreck that was split into three portions from a hurricane in 1996. Built in 1945, The Aeolus was a cargo ship and was repurposed as a cable repair ship in 1955. It was sunk in August 1988 as part of North Carolina’s artificial reef program and lies at a depth of 110 feet. The water and the dives were beautiful. Barracudas, jacks, and other fish surrounded us (sadly no sharks that day) as we swam through parts of the ship. It was absolutely gorgeous. However, one of the most interesting parts of the dive wasn’t a fish or an animal that had come to see us, but it was something that looked oddly familiar from my time in Mexico. There, attached to the ship was a receptor similar to the ones we used while tagging Mobulas. On it was written “NC Aquarium,” which was ironic since that would be my next destination.
Diving The Aeolus
On the eve of my departure from the coastal side of NC, Patty also was able to coordinate a diving visit to the North Carolina Aquarium! It was awesome to meet the staff there and all of the different exhibits. As we toured around, I fondly recalled my early days working at the Greater Cleveland Aquarium and gleefully recognized some of the fish, turtles, and other animals we came across.
Reliving my days Aquarium
Of course, the most exciting part was the diving I did there. After I donned my Aquarium gear I jumped in the large shipwreck exhibit with some sand tiger sharks. It was a great experience. My dive buddy found so many shark teeth and I even got to hang out with the audience and give them some high-fives and some of my dance moves! I couldn’t thank the Aquarium staff and Patty enough for their help and time.
Once I was back in Durham I stayed with Cat and got to do some more fun things in Durham. I was thankfully able to meet and have dinner with the very first Our World-Underwater Rolex Scholar (1974) and former OWUSS Board member, Mark Benson, where we ate, laughed, and talked about the scholarship year. He was even kind enough to give me a much appreciated book on what it takes to be a great leader (Deep Leadership: Essential Insights from High Risk Environments, by Joseph B. MacInnis). Later on I also got to take Cat’s hilarious and adorable son, Ikaika, to visit Duke’s giant campus garden and tour around the main campus of UNC Chapel Hill. He was amazed at the beauty of the different campuses and I let him know that if he wanted to, he could one day attend them. We had so much fun there (especially since he kept asking me if I had a job, and after that I convinced him that I fell out of the sky!)
I was fortunate to dive several times with the DAN interns, Rhiannan and Grant in the local quarries. They were both awesome to hang out with me and show me around some of the area on land as well as underwater. It was super fun (I’m still waiting on that DAN podcast) but was made even more fun once October hit because the spirit of Halloween was in the air, and even in the water. One of the quarries we went to, called Fantasy, was riddled with fun Halloween stuff and creepy embellishments! As Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, I thought it was awesome, fun and a bit creepy but without a doubt we all had a great time. I even got to do a night dive with Grant at JMR quarry, which was near an abandoned prison in the middle of nowhere! So Spooky!
Night diving with Grant near the Prison
Oh no! One of the cast members from Jason and the Argonauts got lost! (If you know you know)
I was having such a great time learning all sorts of new things about North Carolina but despite all the cool things I had done, I was still missing something. Somehow I still hadn’t done a dive yet with my best bud, Cat! How was it that after all this time we still hadn’t been able to go on a single dive together? Well, it was time to fix that. We knew we’d be remiss if we didn’t take the chance to at least get one good dive in so with some planning, Cat and I finally went out to the quarry, jumped in, and explored around with our trusty Blue Gilled friends to help guide us around!
On my dive with Cat
Overall, I had such an amazing time in North Carolina! I was able to attend a diving class at UNC Chapel Hill to inspire others and talk about the OWUSS Scholarship, visit different dive shops like Air Hogs, where I met Thomas Powell, go out with Cat and her son at the bowling alley and the arcade, and just generally hang out with everyone. There is so much here that I didn’t know about before. Though I didn’t get to see her, another one of my diving and research role models, Anjali Boyd, lives in NC as well! I learned and experienced so much, thanks to folks like Patty, Janelle, Craig, Thomas, Mark, and Cat as well as the Aquarium and DAN to help maximize my time in this state. I’ve never experienced anything like it and with that, I feel I can truly say that there really is nothing quite like North Carolina.
