Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 09/07/2011 - 06:06
Forums
Adaptations of Marine Worms in Antarctica

Mike, I am not a diver, please bear with my naive question. I am very curious about what is the dive computer that you mentioned in your journal about the dive gear? Is it something like a car's black box? Do you wear it and it goes into the water with you? Does it have to do with regulating your air tanks? Or is it a laptop computer that stays in the hut for you to take notes and log scientific information about the dives for use back in the lab?
Thanks, Lynn G

Wed, 09/07/2011 - 16:09

Michael League

Lynn,Great questions. I was hoping somebody would ask about the dive
computer. It is a really important piece of our equipment. A dive
computer is a small electronic device that the diver wears in the water.
Most divers wear them on their wrist/forearm and in our pictures
you'll see them on the outside of our dry suits. A lot of ours are gray
in color and look like a huge wrist watch.
So what does it do? Most dive computers perform a couple of tasks.
First, it is a timer - measuring how long you have been underwater.
Second, it is a depth recorder - giving you your current depth and what
your maximum depth was. Some dive computers also take pressure readings
off of your air tank to let you know how much air you have left.
Finally, and here is the really cool part, the dive computer does some
math to figure out how long you can stay at a certain depth. We'll talk
about the dangers of staying too deep too long in a future journal post.
I just made a note to talk more about the dive computer then. Thanks
for the idea!
Mike