Once Southern Ocean Divers unanimously decided to adopt the Pt Noarlunga Reef as our long term survey reef, it was obvious that the whole club members ship should be made aware of the training required by Reef Watch and those who wish to participate in the scheme were accorded the opportunity to do this training.
Our fist step was to approach Reef Watch inviting them to provide our divers with the necessary skills to undertake high quality surveys in the marine environment.
Reef Watch conducts regular training sessions designed to give divers a deeper understanding of the marine environment, identification sessions for fish, marine invertebrates and macro algae (seaweed) .These training sessions take the form of PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) courses.
The training of members was conducted at the regular monthly meetings and onsite at the Noarlunga Reef. The club scheduled at least one Reef Watch Training and Survey dive on it's monthly dive calendar.
Owing to the large number of members wanting to be involved in this activity, students were divided into manageable groups of about 8 (safe number to work with underwater).
James Brooks of Reef Watch was the club's instructor, although at times it was necessary to include a second instructor due to the size of the student body, at all dives safety divers were allocated to maintain a watch over the working students, and to assist divers accessing the northern side of the reef.
Training for survey work was not without cost, with a good part of the dives in 2003-2004 was learning flora and fauna identification and survey methodology.
The Grant provided by the Onkaparinga Council was specifically for "air fills" and given the numbers of training dives members were doing this proved to be a most valuable contribution by the council.
At the conclusion of each Reef watch dive a trainee would be issued with an air fill voucher redeemable from Southern Diving, Roy Tce. Christies Beach.
Students and the club absorbed all other additional expenses in the running of this program.
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