So we are currently at 21 feet, but still physically sitting at 46 feet. You do the math. Unfortunately, due to Tropical Storm Katrina bearing down on us, our underwater adventure is being curtailed. We first noticed the storm pop up last night and thought nothing of it before going to bed. Much to our dismay, by 7 AM the word came down from above that an early decompression was going to commence at 5 PM. With our science gear littered across the reef, we had a hectic morning gathering our instruments and wrapping up our experiments. It was by far the hardest morning of the mission. With all the gear tucked away we finally found ourselves with a little down time. While we relaxed at our favorite, and only, table, a giant visitor made a cameo appearance. Coming out from under Aquarius, Noaah’s dad Earl chilled for a bit outside the view port. He seems to be more successful at scooping up the yellowtail than Noaah as we guess he weighs in at a hefty 250 pounds. As day moved into night, we could tell the storm was overhead. You can actually see the lightning from down here. It is as if there are a bunch of photographers flashing away lighting up the reef. We hope you have enjoyed our Aquarius mission as much as we have. Many thanks to Craig, Kea, and the rest of the Aquarius team for all of your help and support. See you on the surface!
Howard and Meredith over and out.
Today was our last full day of research. Tomorrow, we begin the educational outreach portion of our stay, where we will be doing live broadcasts to high school students to explain our research and answer questions. It was a lot of hustling around to try and gather as much data as we can before we switch gears. While setting up our vacuum filtration system, we were surprised to look up and see the crowd that had gathered around. Some curious yellowtail, Spanish hogfish, and schoolmasters had congregated and seemed as interested in the results of our experiment as we were. Niels snapped a great picture of several of the fish peering into our flasks. Later while filtering water from a sponge so we can determine what it is eating, a small damselfish kept nipping my fingers to let me know I was invading his territory. You have nothing to worry about from the giant barracuda that circle Aquarius; it is the little guys like the damselfish and sergeant majors that cause you to be wary.
Something interesting that you might not know about Aquarius is that we have pneumatic doors. These are doors that we do not have to push, but pull a lever and compressed air causes them to slide open. Every time I head to the wet porch to begin a dive, the pneumatic door makes me feel like I am setting off on an exciting adventure, which is a pretty good description of a typical day in Aquarius.
Things are still going really well. In order to understand how sponges behave we have been running day/night experiments. Last night it was my turn to make the hookah run. Hookah is a way to dive without all the heavy gear. Basically, you have an air line attached to the habitat and off you go. Since we leave equipment out into the night, somebody has to recover it after midnight to ensure that it is charged up and ready to go the next day. So slightly after midnight, I donned my wetsuit and off into the night I went. After a short swim, I came upon the gear only to discover a basket star had climbed to the very top of one of the instruments and spread its arms in search of food. These guys stay tucked away all day and skulk out for their nightly feeding. I tried to get a good picture of him, but unfortunately the lights on the camera were dead from a busy day of work. So instead, I played with him a little bit. Touching his fingers lightly it was amazing to watch him coil his arms in hoping for a tasty morsel. After gathering the instrument, I finally looked back and saw Aquarius glowing in the night. Very cool!!!
Make a fist. Now put your thumb and pinky fingers up and twist your hand back and forth. This how you signal cool underwater and that is how I would describe our last couple of days. After finishing the vertical array experiment yesterday, we have gone back to cranking out data on sponges. By placing dye near the sponge, we can see how much water it is filtering. One of the giant barrel sponges was shooting out a plume of yellow water at least fifteen feet high! Although the water is pretty warm here, there have been waves of cold water coming across the reef periodically over the past several days. Niels and I did our version of underwater jumping jacks as we floated above the reef to warm up after encountering one of these cold pockets. As we were finishing our last dive of the day, a huge sea turtle swam past Niels and I straight towards one of the Aquarius cameras before veering off onto the reef. We both smiled as we swam towards our underwater home. Don’t let anyone try to tell you science isn’t cool!
Well, we just finished an extensive two day vertical array experiment and it could not have gone much better. Intensive planning and coordination resulted in a fully instrumented array and continuous water sampling from 8 am to 6 pm daily. The team work was text book. Team topside filtered water samples aboard the R.V. Legacy, while shuttling clean sample containers to the bottom, just as we were ready to start our next collection. Our tight dive plan maximized everyone’s excursion time while keeping Aquanauts always sampling and still taking into account tank fills.
During the long days we had many pleasant encounters with our finned friends. From a nurse shark to an eagle ray, to a sea turtle, and of course Noah! On one trip back to fill tanks, Noah was chilling out under the grating. As we approached, he cruised under Aquarius. As he cleared the habitat, a small school of yellowtail snapper followed him. Why, I’m not sure, but Noah whipped around, sending the yellowtail back to Aquarius for protection as he tootled off along the reef.