Mission Journal 3 — Mark Hulsbeck: Mission Day 3: Friday, July 15th, 2005
It’s good to be back in the Aquarius for the first full science mission of the year. The menace of Hurricane Dennis passed leaving some relatively minor damage to the habitat. It could have been worse. The popular dive site wreck of the Spiegal Grove is about 15 miles north of here and it was turned upright from it’s initial position of being on it’s side. It’s a credit to the original installers of the habitat on the sea floor at Conch Reef that we are underway on this mission and not looking for a wayward habitat! Instead we were able to render repairs, complete Aquanaut training and start the mission only one day late The reef looks like it held it’s own during the passing storm. There was some sand shifting and scouring. Some broken corals, but not too much. The settling silt looks like a dusting of light snow on the reef. Water visibility has been very low, but slowly improving. The bright side of low visibility is that the water is full of plankton, which makes for an interesting show at our viewports at night.
Ross and I are spending time in the water cleaning valves and related equipment. We also tightened down a hold down chain or two that was loosened by the storm. Every now and then we get distracted by the reef community around us. I saw a large nurse shark in a concentrated search pattern on the bottom. Then I spotted it’s prey. There was a dead snapper resting nearby that the shark quickly found and sucked into her mouth with the efficiency of a vacuum cleaner. Then, while scrubbing a valve handle, a curious green moray eel came along and rested his head on my arm for a moment. I said hello and he went about his business.
This group of Aquanauts are spending lots of time on the reef. Keeping busy makes the time fly by. Saturday already!