Mission Journal 11 — John Parker: Mission Day 8: Monday, November 15th, 2004
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN AQUANAUT
We have another weather day - cursed winds - and so another opportunity to write about the experience of living in the ocean. Every day we rise at 5am to have coffee and some breakfast, generally consisting of bagels and instant oatmeal. There is no sun, the portholes are dark save for the overhead lights, and we eat silently at the galley table while watching a few Spanish Hogfishes and Sergeant Majors picking at drifting morsels. Jay and Thor start going through a series of daily systems checks in the short, clipped verse of people who know their business. The radio crackles with radio checks from the watchdesk back on land. Air cylinders are turned on and off. Everything in the habitat that keeps us alive is in working order.
The toughest part of every day has been getting ready for the morning dive. After a few days of diving, our wetsuits have chafed our skin in various places, and pulling on a damp, stinky wetsuit (2 cups coffee + 5 hour dive) is a chore that runs up to 20 minutes per person. Once we’re finally mated to our customized, 92lb dive rigs though, it’s a relief to push off the wetporch, take the weight off, and see what’s moving about in the early morning darkness.
The morning dive is the best part of the day. You head out when the sun is still down and see the sunrise on the reef. Most of the creatures (except us) are still sleeping and we’ve got the run of the place. We look around for big shadows - predators: sharks, groupers, barracuda, snappers - hunting the reef in the early morning. It is a quiet, reflective time on the reef. We pass a sleeping parrotfish under a ledge. The only sounds are our own bubbles from breathing. Then around 830am things start to move around, the sun starts to light the reef up, the background begins to take shape. Of course, by this time we are COLD. Shivering cold. And there is still 2.5hrs left until lunch and a nap. Nonetheless, it goes pretty fast. Our morning is punctuated by brief stops at the NE waystation to check in with Aquarius and get some more air; there is a sound-operated hailer and a compressed air fill station running through the umbilical to the habitat. Two days ago we got a special treat - our surface support crew left us cookies and milk. Food goes down nicely in the middle of a 5hr dive. Then, when we near the end of our dive, we pack up our tools, leave them in a secure spot, and we head back to Aquarius by pulling ourselves along the excursion ropes laid out to mark the route. Along the way, which is about 900feet, we all look around for various interesting creatures, all the aquanauts stopping and pointing out things to the others. It is in these brief moments that it hits us: we are living in the ocean, what a cool experience.
Our arrival to the habitat is typically a mish-mash of our own stories and data yelled out to the habitat crew; they are responsible for getting our dive logs out of us so we can plan our next dive. We do this in the wetporch, a musty, damp, wet, well, wetporch; a place where we store our wetsuits and all of our wet gear. The pressurized air of the habitat keeps the water from rushing in past the ‘moonpool’. After quick wetsuit rinsings and hot, blessed showers, it is off to forage in the shelves for dehydrated foodpaks. We all have to know what everyone else is eating in case our own meal is less than appetizing. Good and bad meals are duly noted for next time. Then, naptime. Naps feel pretty darn good after 5hrs in the water. After a couple hours we wake up for our afternoon dive at 3pm.
The afternoon dive is different. All the creatures are up, things are happening on the reef, we even occasionally run into our surface support crew down from the topside boat that bobs on the mooring line. It is a welcome sight to see people from ‘the other side’. The sunset on the reef is cool. At about 530pm you start to notice that the background blue is bluer, the shapes blurrier, and the sea surface and the water column generally become one but for a single shimmery yellow spot where the sun is glancing off as it goes down. I typically stop to watch this for a few minutes. I look around and the rest of the aquanauts have stopped to watch the sunset as well. Then, a few more minutes of work before we race back to the Aquarius before 6pm (we cannot stay past 6pm or they will send out emergency divers after us; this would be bad). Along the way we see coral polyps extended and feeding, morays out foraging, basket stars creakily extending their arms into the rushing current, barracuda stalking the sand grooves along the reef. You can occasionally hear roving bands of parrotfish scraping seaweed off the reef. It is again one of those moments where you realize you are experiencing the ocean from a truly unique perspective.
You hear the Aquarius before you actually see it. You’re pulling along the line and there is a little coral ridge you go over and suddenly there is a low humming of the generators. If you listen closely you’ll also hear the clanging of mooring chains, and occasionally the scraping and hammering of one of the techs cleaning the outer hull. It’s typically completely dark by this time and we are hoping to catch a glimpse of big predators looking for a meal. Arrival for dinner is a lot like lunch. Except we now know what meal not to get for dinner. After eating and checking emails, we busy ourselves with books, dive stories, and looking out the portholes. Then sleep. Bright and early, rise and shine tomorrow at 5am for a brisk 5hr dive. That, in a rather large nutshell, is what life is like at 47′ below the surface.