Mission & Project Info | NOAA’s Aquarius Undersea Laboratory
Mission Blog

To say that we are staying in the “Cadillac” of SAT systems is an understatement. The sleeping racks are comfortable and the amount of room is much more than I expected. Day two started for me at 0530 just after Roger woke up. Soon after everyone else opened their eyes. We performed the predives on the hats and then ate breakfast.

Ira and I splashed just before eight AM and picked up where we left off last night While we waited for surface support to arrive on station; we continued cleaning the baseplate jack screws. Just like work on land, there are jobs that are tedious down here, but they must be done. The only difference is the challenge of the work environment. Just because a job is tedious doesn’t mean we don’t like it, any job down here is a good job, and all of us would gladly jump in to do it.

Once surface support arrived we quickly turned in our scrapers and brushes to do some “man work” (sorry women no offense intended, I know women divers who do a great job doing man work too). I say man work because we get to hammer anchors into the floor bed using hydraulics and a big jack hammer. The trick is to use teamwork and manipulate the hammer to stay in position until the anchor is deep enough, which sometimes means standing on the hammer and pushing against objects above with your hands while your partner guides it into position.

The next pair replaced us and began drilling holes in the floor bed to place a different type of anchor. One of the challenging aspects of this job is communications, divers relay info to the diving supervisor, supervisors relay that info to Aquarius’s inside commander (Roger), which then gets relayed to surface support, and then back through the same channels for conformation. You can imagine how frustrating this can get if not done clearly. Info must flow both directions so everyone knows the status of the job, if delayed, frustration will begin to mount.

Our team has done a great job today, there was little to no frustration, we worked hard and we were able to overcome the challenges that always present themselves with this type of work. We would not have been successful today without the experience of all team members from surface support to the divers.

Without a doubt this is one of the highlights of my 13 year Navy diving career. The experience I have already gained this first day is more then I had expected. This team of divers I am working with is as good as any I have ever worked with and that is saying a lot.

We arrived on station at 1015 am. Team one reached surface around 1045 as team two anxiously awaited our descent to Aquarius. We left surface at 1205 and rallied in the wet porch to store our air bottles, we then received our first brief in the escape pod otherwise known as the Gazebo. Our next brief was given by Roger inside Aquarius where he explained the important things such as where the food is and where we sleep. We then ate lunch and immediately went to work, Ira Lafever and I were the first pair of divers. Our first task was to clean the threads on the baseplate’s screw jacks. We spent two hours cleaning and then did a quick hose stretch before Joshua Nudelman and Chad Wascom took over. Terry Pace swapped with Chad after two hours to inspect the work and survey the area.

The amount of effort, support crew, and planning it takes to run a dive like this is amazing. I am grateful to the Navy and the people of NOAA’s Aquarius for giving us this opportunity.

We reached the surface at 0945 after 16.5 hours of decompression. The end of the first half of the Navy saturation mission for 06–10–Sat, and the beginning of the second half had arrived. Forty five minutes after reaching the surface, we requested permission to leave the surface once again. That’s right, leave the surface again.

Aquarius never really “leaves bottom” or “reaches the surface” in the traditional sense. Designed as a pressure vessel, we “leave bottom”, “reach surface” and “reach bottom” again, all without getting wet during our decompression procedures. The first set of Navy saturation divers exit Aquarius shortly after reaching the bottom, and make a 50’ / 15 minute No “D” dive following their 5 day saturation mission and see sun light. I won’t be leaving the bottom with this set. I stay and wait for the second set of Navy saturation divers for their 6 day mission.

This was the plan, for me to stay and re–saturate with the next group. No problem, I say… Carlos Eyles, author of Blue Water Hunter said… “A man isn’t a man until he returns to the sea”.