As the Sea Trolls were approaching the end of our advanced open water course, we had one skill yet to complete. This was search and recovery……
We started out at Mathesons bay, practicing our searching patterns, U shape, expanding square, circular and linear but the day we happened to pick to complete this task offered us amazing conditions with 10m visibility, not so good for a search and recovery mission, so we used this as practice and returned on another day to complete the skill. When we came back the conditions were pretty good for search and recovery. Having already practiced the ‘search’ we followed on with the ‘recovery’ side of things. Demonstrating to Doyle that we all could successfully remember our knots (which we had been practicing on the way down thankfully) Except for the fact it turns out to be harder to tie a knot underwater when you have slightly numb fingers from the cold , we all managed to successfully show a bowline, two half hitches and a sheet bend. While connecting a lift bag to a cylinder that was dropped underwater, and demonstrating how to inflate the lift bag just enough to recover the cylinder. After this first dive we had successfully shown our skills and knowledge but now was time to put them to the test. We kitted up once again and got back in the water, this time with an actual mission on our hands. The cylinder had been left somewhere in Mathesons bay and our job as the sea trolls, now trained in search and recovery was to find it, and bring it back. 3,2,1 and we were off, headed out on a general bearing and knowing that it was ‘somewhere in the bay’ we didn’t really have much to go off. The first team to find it was Gana and Milo in their buddy group, celebrating the win and hauling the cylinder back in to shore, it was found before time was up and we successfully completed our mission!
Ella Howard.