Mission Journal 4 — Alex Chequer: Mission Day 2: Tuesday, November 9th, 2004
Ouch - That was the first thing I thought this morning when the alarm went off at 4.30am. Far too early.
As it turned out it was too early, we were ready to leave the habitat in plenty of time so tomorrow we will get an extra 30 minutes in bed. But once we were all suited up and full of coffee and left Aquarius at 6am it was all worth it. It was still dark as we left so we got to watch the sun rise from beneath the ocean and the change of guard on the reef, all the nocturnal creatures going and the daytime ones arriving.
Once it was light enough to see we began work on our cages. I have to keep reminding myself to stop and look around once in a while to see what is going on around me, at one point I glanced up and saw 2 manta rays swimming by, heading out into deeper water. All too suddenly our 5 hours were up and it was time to head back to Aquarius, but that did mean food, as we were all starving having left our snacks behind in Aquarius this morning.
After lunch we had several visitors, first our surface support team stopped by very briefly bringing gifts. After a high speed tour of the habitat it was then time for them to leave, Melissa nearly had to be dragged out by Thor, she really didn’t want to leave. Then the Doc showed up for his house call, luckily we are all still healthy so there was no work for him to do. After that, we all managed to squeeze in a quick nap before our 3pm dive. In fact life down here consists mainly of 3 things - diving, eating and sleeping. If we are not diving, we’ll eat and then sleep and then the cycle will start again. That reminds me, I’ve already eaten dinner so now it must be time for bed, 5am comes around too quickly down here. Good night.