Mission Journal 5 — Mark Hulsbeck: Mission Day 2: Tuesday, June 15th, 2004
This is the end of day 2 of my 10th Aquarius mission. I got married last month, so this will give my wife Sue a chance to rearrange the house while I’m away.
So far things are going pretty well with the mission. Jim Leichter knows how to fully utilize the available dive time from the Aquarius. He and his crew have been quite busy.Hal Letts and I are starting to make some progress on the outside habitat maintenance.We have had some large tarpon and permit swimming around the habitat lately. They are a sight to see. Speaking of large, I had to laugh at Dr. Leichter today. He was standing in the water in the wet porch (about waist deep) when Steve Wing said “look behind you Jim!” To Jim’s chagrin, there was a 4 foot (in Jim’s eye’s, a six foot) resident barracuda less than one foot away, sizing him up. Jim leaped up into the dry area of the wet porch in a single bound! Now, I know Jim is not concerned about barracudas in open water, but it is a bit disconcerting to be in a small space with a large snaggle-tooth barracuda giving you the once over. I told him I was laughing with him not at him, but I think Steve was laughing AT him.