As a nature-lover who derives endless joy from natural spaces, I want to help, but donating money and making small lifestyle changes doesn’t feel like enough. So when I read about Reef Check California, an organisation that trains volunteer divers to survey marine life on nearshore rocky reefs, my pulse quickened and my mind raced with possibilities. Here was an opportunity to actively help monitor the health of the ocean, with the added perk of experiencing interesting adventures along the way.

Reef Check California was formed in 2005 as an offshoot of the global Reef Check Worldwide Foundation, with a mission to monitor the health of California’s rocky reef and kelp forest ecosystems. To achieve this goal, the organisation trains local volunteer divers to collect data on selected indicator species, which are chosen based on a combination of factors including ease of identification, prevalence, ecological importance, and economic importance. Volunteer divers trained by Reef Check have conducted more than 10,000 surveys in 95 countries and territories throughout the world, nearly 800 of which have taken place in California.

Reef Check CA offers several training programmes throughout the state, including one in the San Francisco Bay Area, my home. The first weekend was held at the renowned California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, and comprised a day and a half of classroom instruction covering survey methods and species identification, plus a half day in the pool practicing survey protocols. The second weekend consisted of two days of field training in nearby Monterey Bay, a popular area for diving in California.

The first day of training fell on a rare warm summer day in San Francisco. Walking to the research entrance of the Cal Academy of Sciences, I felt a few slight pangs of nervous anticipation, looking forward to the training and not knowing quite what to expect. We met our instructor, Dan Abbott, in the cavernous rear lobby of the academy, surrounded by the echoes of visitors enjoying the exhibits. Dan is the Central Coast Regional Manager for Reef Check CA; in addition to running the training sessions, he also organizes all of the surveys along the central coast. We proceeded up to a mid-sized conference room, and a round of introductions from the ten trainees revealed a diverse mix of participants, ranging in age from college students to retirees. Day jobs included a healthy dose of tech and biotech workers (this is the Bay Area), teachers, small business owners, and aspiring marine biologists. All of us were united by a love of the ocean, an interest in learning more about it, and a desire to help preserve its splendour.

We eased into the training with background information about Reef Check, basic knowledge about the nearshore ecosystem, and an introduction to scientific diving principles. Dan’s teaching style, informative and liberally interspersed with humour, made the material engaging and easy to absorb. After lunch we moved onto the species identification portion of the training and then the firehose opened up to full throttle.

After several hours learning the distinguishing features of nearly eighty species of invertebrates, fish, and marine algae (aka seaweed), my head was swimming. A brief interlude to walk through the native fish aquariums in the academy and practice identification was a welcome break. However, during our review at the end of the day, I was drowning in the inundation of subtle distinguishing factors like body coloration, lateral line markings, fin shape, epipodium texture, and tentacle colour.

At home that evening, my inner nerd kicked in and I spent an hour or so reviewing and categorizing my notes, attempting to attach the information to a scaffolding my bleary brain could retain. Exhausted, I fell asleep with images of abalone and rockfish flitting through my head.