You have some good ideas there. Here's an off-topic story.
I was listening to an interview with
John Chatterton, of
"Shadow Divers" fame. He has great respect for Robert Kurson, a journalist and the author of "Shadow Divers", a book that made John even more famous, outside of diving circles. The book is about the identification of a sunken U-boat of the NJ shore, which is widely considered an extremely challenging dive, even for very experienced technical divers.
Robert (who was not a diver, or even much of a swimmer) decided that to write the book, he needed to dive the wreck, so he signed up for an introductory diving class, telling the instructor that he only wanted to do one dive (the U-869).
It's a pretty funny story, and Chatterton tells it well..
So you are following a great tradition, of getting to know your subject matter before starting to write!