Mission Journal 25 — James Talacek: Day 11: Thursday, June 26th, 2003
Mission day 11. The day I’ve been waiting for…. I say that because previously my longest mission has been ten days. So I’ve been looking forward to waking up to “day 11″. Where to start? Oh yeah, if you haven’t read Garrett and Clay’s journals, do so. Those guys missed their calling as stand up comedians.
It’s about 9:30 pm and this day is slowly winding down. What a day! It started as all days start for habitat technicians… the daily checklist, complemented by a minimum of two cups of cocoa. After all the systems checks were done, I headed out on a routine habitat maintenance dive. First thing on the agenda was to drill some holes through a steel member on the baseplate for a new camera mount. The job was going well, but my thoughts were elsewhere. Below the habitat was a huge “ball” of baitfish stealing my attention away from the task at hand. I had to take a break…oh wait, I mean investigate.
I found thousands of small baitfish swirling around one of the baseplate legs. As I moved in closer the sight was amazing. Lots of yellowtail snapper and various jacks were feeding at a frenzied rate. Two nurse sharks and a large stingray were “buried” in the mix of fish. I observed them laying on the bottom sucking in as many of the little fellas as they could. They must have been getting a mouthful of sand also because I saw them exhaling some sand through their gills. As I crept in closer I saw a green moray eel wrapped around the pivot bearing and getting in on his share of the meal.
The sharks and ray, which are normally a little skiddish, seemed to be unfettered by my presence. I guess the meal was too good to worry about me. After a few minutes of observing I decided it was time to get back to work. Upon arrival atop the base plate I found a damsel fish attempting to nudge away my bag of pneumatic drill accoutrements. Apparently I had left it too close to one of his egg sacks clinging to the baseplate.
As I got back to work I couldn’t help feeling extremely lucky. All of these cool sights within the first 30, oh I mean “15″, minutes of my dive. And they actually pay me to do this? No amount of overtime pay could equal the satisfaction of an experience like this… Although it would make expensive hobbies a little more affordable.
After lunch we all participated in various public affairs events ranging from interviews by CNN, to a newspaper in Lincoln, Nebraska. Those events are always fun. Although thoughts are still racing through my head I must stop here. Wake up call tomorrow is 5:00 am and I’m not what you’d call a morning person.