Algebraic Diving

[MaxBottomtime]

Diving today reminded me of Algebra class. There were so many variables out there. We arrived at the marina just in time for a light rainfall. Meteorologist Merry said it was just a small cell overhead and would clear out soon. It shouldn't rain until later tonight. It rained most of the day.
We planned to dive a reef off Rocky Point that tops out at twelve feet. We knew that it would have to be a calm day to dive here. The ocean surface was like glass. It's been more than a year since I've seen that, yet there was enough energy to create large surf along the shore. Huge swells rolled across the reef while we watched in pond-like seas fifty feet away. We knew it would be too surgy to dive here so we headed to the White Point Outfall Pipes.
The water here was calm but not as clear as the west side of Palos Verdes. On the bottom it was stirred up pretty bad with enough surge to make photography very difficult.
We want back to the west side and found beautiful blue water at Golf Ball Reef. I could see Kevin clearly from thirty feet away as we descended. The great visibility disappeared as we approached the reef. By the end of the dive the surface water was as dirty as the bottom. Never trust a flat ocean.

Hydroid covered decorator crab

No golf balls were recovered, but I did find some brass

Simnia snail, Delonovolva aequalis

Female sheephead close up and personal

Cuthona lagunae

 

[kwinter]

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with algebra class, but thanks for reminding people that algebra can be fun.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I had an algebra teacher in college who wouldn't allow us to write x =. We had to write "the letter x shall represent the variable for.." and we could only solve one problem on each sheet of paper. We didn't like her much.

 

[TSandM]

I love the hydroid-covered decorator crabs. We have a local site that has a heavy growth of those hydroids right at the top of a wall; as you swim along, every once in a while, a clump of hydroids will rise up and scuttle away -- it always makes me laugh.

 

[drbill]

I was head of the math and science department at the Catalina Island School (Toyon Bay) for many years way back when. I decided to teach Algebra I as I figured it would be an easy class to teach given that I had seven different preps that semester. I was floored when the vast majority of my students couldn't understand the simplest thing in the course. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why they didn't and finally gave up. I asked our art teacher to teach the second semester and she did a great job... mainly because math was not her forte and she had a much better understanding of why the students didn't get it at first.

Oh, wait, this is a SCUBA forum. The only variable affecting my diving today is a nasty cold that has resurfaced for the third time!

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I asked my Algebra prof a question about Greatest Possible Error and he said that wouldn't be covered until Algebra 2 the following semester. I had already learned about it in high school twenty years before. I guess my college class was made up of Dr. Bill's former students.