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

Day two; well actually the morning of day three, about 6:50 in the morning. Lying in bed, I realize that the sea is not such a quiet place. A constant snapping and popping surrounds the habitat and mixes with the humming of the habitat. I lay on the top bunk, in a room with three bunks stacked on each wall. Being 6 ft tall, the headroom is not what I’m used too, or could use, thus I am banging my head every so often. Mark, our trusty senior habitat tech, turns on the light in the bunks to remind us of our full day planned ahead. I guess a thank you is in order. Sebastian and I will be leaving a bit earlier to check out a brittle-star experiment I set up yesterday, but I’ll get to that.

Yesterday was a good day. We found our old study site, and spent the morning monitoring and measuring the barrel sponges. All the while being passed by fish after fish. Even some lobster popped out to see what odd creatures were making such a racket. We are guests in their world, visitors. And someone was nice enough to build a little aquarium, where they can swim up to the window and watch us. And they do, schools of them. Come up to the window and swim away. I can see the ad now, “Come see the amazing air breathers.”

I spent the afternoon with my brittle stars. I just completed my masters degree this year studying sponge and brittle star associations. Imagine, if you’re a brittle star and you’re going to hide in a sponge, you’ll probably pick one that gives the best protection. A sponge with one big opening lets too many predators in, and would not be a good place to stay. So we set up a bunch sponges with big and small openings. How do you change the opening of a sponge? With a needle and thread of course. This morning we’ll go and see how many of these nocturnal creatures stayed in their different habitats. And another piece of the puzzle begins to fall into place.

As I said, it’s a full day, so it’s off to work. I’m thinking another bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. Then it’s out to the wet porch, and back to work. The life of an aquanaut.

Well, yesterday morning we said good-bye to the surface, and dove 50 ft. underwater to live and work for 7 days. It was a return home; this time last year, I was in the same place, with the same scientists. It was a homecoming. I’m sure those of you who grew up in a metal tube the size of a large bus, and had 5 brothers or sisters to fill the little bit of space, can relate. Here, we get to roll out of bed, grab a bite to eat, walk out the door, and swim. Not a bad way to work.

We spent last week in training, reacquainting ourselves with the gear and the ideas of saturation diving. Like I said, we had all done this a year ago, but the gear isn’t our usual scuba gear. Twin aluminum air tanks, weighing about 90 pounds, lines and reels, systems of checks and double checks. Normally the surface is our safety net, but down here our bodies are saturated with gases, thus the type of diving “saturation diving.” So our metal tube, our Aquarius, is our safety net, and we’re never far from it.

It’s now Tuesday morning, and with network problems soon to be resolved, we have access to email and the Internet. So someone out there can read these random thoughts. We’re already ahead of our work schedule. Yesterday we began to monitor the giant barrel sponge Xestospongia muta. We’ve been watching the local population for a couple years now, examining growth, recruitment, die-off and disease. This mission we are continuing to look at deep water sponges, and will head to our site at 110 ft. depth this morning. Through Aquarius, we can stay out diving for over 3 hours at this depth, much longer than surface diving.

So, I should grab a bowl of oatmeal and prepare for the day. Looking out the window, the sun is shining, sky is blue, without a cloud to be seen. Well actually, the water is blue, and schools of fish are swimming about the window. Visibility could be a bit better, but hey when your get to live under the sea, who can complain. Just another day at the office.