Mission Journal 8 — Administrator: Mission Day 5: Sunday, July 17th, 2005
Today was officially “collect the data” day. After a few days of setting up the instruments, troubleshooting, testing the water sampling lines and getting our system in order, we were ready for a full day of sampling from morning ’til night. Jim and Greg headed out bright and early to check on the sponge experiments and then headed over to the “control volume” sampling array. Kristen and I stayed in Aquarius and had a nice time visiting with some Girl Scouts who stopped by (including one from the coolest state in the country- my home state of Pennsylvania). After a few test runs by Jim and Greg, Kristen and I gave them the tag team and took over sampling during the afternoon. All in all, it was very successful and we were able to get through a couple of very smooth, clean sampling routines.
The surface support crew did a spectacular job once again, and always seemed to be diving down the lines to grab our samples just as we were finishing the experiment. As the day wore on, we all started to feel the cold a little bit, hanging out at 70 ft. Jim had the smart idea to hover around 60 ft where the water was noticeably warmer, so we each took turns running samples, taking pictures, or watching the action from above. I got some great shots of this big old lobster that was sitting behind us under some rocks. He seemed fat, happy, and content watching these funny looking humans wandering around the reef.
Kristen and I stayed out until 5:30 pm while Greg and Jim maintained the station for one last set of samples to be collected. Around 7:30 pm our last set of samples were done and the surface crew headed in for the night.
Hopefully tonight I’ll make it out for my first “hooka” run to do night photography. I’m pretty excited about it and crossing my fingers the nurse sharks will still be there. With so much time in the water, I think I’m starting to grow my own fins. Not that I’ll need them, the fish don’t seem to care one way or the other if I’m there.