Mission Journal 7 — Shannon Johnson: Mission Day 4: Monday, December 12th, 2005
Every mission has a day like today, you know the type of day I am talking about, it’s the one where Murphy rears his ugly head. It is also the type of day that shows the character of all the team members. You either fix the problems that Murphy presents you with, or things get worse. Today our u/w chiller unit failed, but thanks to the quick work of NOAA’s support divers, they were able to get a replacement on–line in just a few short hours. The chiller unit is what keeps the temperature and humidity down in the habitat, if repairs weren’t made it would have been very uncomfortable to live in. Swapping out the bad 1000 pound unit at 50 feet with another unit brought out from the beach is not like changing a spare tire on your car, but it comes with the game of living underwater.
Murphy then tried a new tactic, he decided to send a 6 foot barracuda to take a snap at me, thanks to my lightning quick reactions he only cut my finger. Oh, I’m just kidding, I cut myself on an oyster while cleaning the baseplate. Sorry for the exaggeration, the truth seems so trivial.
We have one more day in Aquarius before we start our sixteen hour decompression. The days have flown by and all six of us have lived and worked great together. Usually after the second or third day it becomes clear who’s the nut in a bucket of screws, but fortunately we are all just screws and were able to work well together.