Mission Journal 9 — Janet Nestlerode: Day 8: Monday, July 21st, 2003
Today is sadly our last full day of diving. It is hard to believe this mission has flown by so fast! It seems like only yesterday we were wide-eyed and eager to move in to our underwater home. The wide-eyed bit hasn’t changed much over the week. Everything is still amazing and exciting. Now we don’t want to leave!
This morning Jo and I took care of PAMming the chamber corals before heading down the 5th leg line. This is the first time any of us have been out to the 5th leg this mission. Most of the excursions that I have been out on have involved a visit to the Kamper station, and today was no different. The excursion lines are like an underwater highway that leads us to and from the habitat and all over the surrounding reef. Some of the lines intersect with each other so we can get to a fill station without swimming all the way back to the habitat. The 5th Leg line extends out from the starboard side of the habitat and there is a line leading to the Kamper fill station about half-way down the line. Today we went all the way to the end of the 5th Leg line and used our cave-diving reels to go out another 300 feet (we used every last inch on our reel!) to get out to a depth of 110 feet. We PAMmed a bunch of Montastrea faveolata coral colonies and were soon joined by our Aquanaut friends Mark and Kristen who ventured out to collect pH profiles.
Along the way, we saw a couple of banded jawfish (Opistognathus macrognathus) poking their heads out of their burrows on a sand plane. The burrow openings were surrounded by bits of coral rubble and easy to spot as we swim above them. The fish look a little like bullfrogs with big mouths and big eyes.
We also saw an old abandoned lobster pot near a large coral head where we were PAMming. There were two smooth trunkfish inside that looked as if they were having a hard time finding their way out to the small opening leading out of the trap, so we ripped the lid of the trap off and freed them.
About an hour and a half into our dive, we decided to head back to the Kamper station to fill our tanks and check in with Cooper and Roger back at the habitat via the nifty intercom system. It’s truly amazing that we can talk to the folks in the habitat from all the way out at a fill station. Later today, Cooper and Roger are going to install a new web cam out at the Kamper station so that Aquarius viewers like you can see divers when they out there. Today we will be out at Kamper sometime between 3:15 and 5:15, so maybe you can catch a glimpse of us while we are filling or collecting samples!