Mission Journal 1 — Roger Garcia: Pre-Mission: Wednesday, December 1st, 2004
Today would have normally been training day 3 for aquanaut candidates, but for this mission that is not the case. No aquanaut candidates are training this week because this mission is different, different because U.S. Navy Divers will the aquanauts.
Craig Cooper, our Operations Director has been working closely with Capt. Mark Helmkamp, the current U.S. Navy Supervisor of Diving and my former commanding officer to ensure the success of this mission. The interesting thing about this mission is that the divers, although all are qualified Navy Divers and have been for many years, are all part of a U.S. Navy saturation diver class being held at the Center for EOD and Diving in Panama City Florida. These divers have an opportunity to participate in an open water saturation dive instead of a dive that may have been done under controlled conditions in the Ocean Simulation Facility at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit, also in Panama City. Additionally, I am always very excited about the opportunity to dive inside Aquarius, but in this case even more so. I once again get to dive with the people and the organization that I so enjoyed to work and dive with for so many years.