Well, today is a weather day and we are all safely ensconced in the habitat. Apparently it’s pretty windy on the surface today, as all the fishes are having a tough time staying in one place here on the bottom. In fact it’s so windy that the sea state will not allow the fast boat to come out and get us in case of emergency, thus, we cannot dive. Bummer.
We mainly feel the surge in our ears as the inside pressure changes slightly with the passing waves. It’s kind of weird, sort of like the feeling when a plane takes off. Couple that with the ominous whoosh of the surge sucking air out of the habitat, each time followed by a rushing surge of water spilling into the wetporch, and it feels and sounds like we’re in a hurricane, only 50ft below the surface, surrounded by water. It’s very cool.
We all got to catch up on sleep today, but we’re starting to get really antsy to get out in the water. In our off time we are eating, and sleeping. I think we’re starting to scare Jay and Thor, we are all wondering who will be the first one cannibalized if we run out of food.
Well, some days are weather days even at the bottom of the sea, and Mother Nature can put a crimp in your style even when you think she can’t get to you. The weather topside was bad enough today that we couldn’t dive. Since the boats back at the base would have trouble making it out to us in case of an emergency, the powers that be suspended diving for the day just to be on the safe side - which was ok with all of us. The last thing that any of us want is to be in a dangerous situation. So we were content, if a little restless, to sit inside the habitat today and watch the fishes through the viewports, eat, read books, eat, sleep, eat, and, did I mention, eat. When you have a ton of food just sitting there staring you in the face beckoning to be eaten it’s hard not to comply. After all, fish watching is exhausting work.
But all time in the water was not lost today. I went out for an hour dive on the hookah rig today. The hookah is basically a regulator attached to the air banks of Aquarius by a 75-100 foot long hose. So you can explore as far from the habitat as the hose lets you. I spent my hour searching the sand around the habitat for shells, parrotfish jaws, and old coral skeletons. I watched a rainbow parrotfish languidly swim off in a sand plain and a black grouper chase around a school of Creole wrasse. As I played around in the sand, inquisitive hogfish and trunkfish would weave in and out between my arms hoping I would unearth some scrumptious bite that they wouldn’t have to work too hard for. The current brought a big moon jellyfish by, and a scrawled file fish made a snack of its tentacles before the current swept the jelly away and the file fish contentedly returned to hunting down hydroids on the habitat. Even though we lost some work time today, it’s probably one of the best places I’ve ever been stuck in with nothing much to do. But here’s hoping for calm seas and work diving tomorrow.
Up at 5am today after a solid nights sleep. The wind has picked up overnight and so have the seas, so shortly after we got up we were told that we couldn’t leave the habitat as the fast boat can’t get out to us if it was needed. So it was back to bed for most for another 3-4 hours of sleep.
The wind at Molasses Tower, a nearby weather station, is now blowing at 28 knots with gusts up to 35 knots, the forecast is predicting 7-10 foot seas, so we will be kept inside for most of the day probably.
Inside our ears keep popping as the waves pass over head and suck air out of the habitat and then force water up into the wet porch with a large whooshing sound. The fish outside the viewports are moving around in large circular patterns as they are carried around by the surge, occasionally we can even feel the habitat move or shudder when a large swell passes overhead.
I think most of today will be spent staring out of the viewports, reading and of course eating and sleeping.
As our Navy Doc mentioned yesterday about living on a submarine, eat until you’re tired then sleep until you’re hungry. I think that will pretty much sum up our day, except for the occasional breaks to stare outside or read. John is getting cabin fever already and wants to get outside so we may have to stick him out in the wet porch soon.
I would also like to take this opportunity to correct John’s journal entry from Day 1, his memory may be a little foggy. What he may have perceived as yells of fury when we were woken at 3am, didn’t come across to everyone else that way. In fact it was hard to distinguish his screams from Deron’s, we’re still trying to work out who screamed the loudest. Obviously these were very manly screams though, not at all like girly screams.
Ouch - That was the first thing I thought this morning when the alarm went off at 4.30am. Far too early.
As it turned out it was too early, we were ready to leave the habitat in plenty of time so tomorrow we will get an extra 30 minutes in bed. But once we were all suited up and full of coffee and left Aquarius at 6am it was all worth it. It was still dark as we left so we got to watch the sun rise from beneath the ocean and the change of guard on the reef, all the nocturnal creatures going and the daytime ones arriving.
Once it was light enough to see we began work on our cages. I have to keep reminding myself to stop and look around once in a while to see what is going on around me, at one point I glanced up and saw 2 manta rays swimming by, heading out into deeper water. All too suddenly our 5 hours were up and it was time to head back to Aquarius, but that did mean food, as we were all starving having left our snacks behind in Aquarius this morning.
After lunch we had several visitors, first our surface support team stopped by very briefly bringing gifts. After a high speed tour of the habitat it was then time for them to leave, Melissa nearly had to be dragged out by Thor, she really didn’t want to leave. Then the Doc showed up for his house call, luckily we are all still healthy so there was no work for him to do. After that, we all managed to squeeze in a quick nap before our 3pm dive. In fact life down here consists mainly of 3 things - diving, eating and sleeping. If we are not diving, we’ll eat and then sleep and then the cycle will start again. That reminds me, I’ve already eaten dinner so now it must be time for bed, 5am comes around too quickly down here. Good night.
Today I did a 6hr dive that went all too fast. It seemed like every time I looked at my clock another hour had passed by and we’d have to go to the habitat. After continuing to shore up our cages for the experiments, we left our tools (hammers, mainly) at the dive site and swam to the habitat - about a 10 min or so drift. Along the way the excursion line goes over some areas that are a little too shallow for us, so we dropped to the bottom and drifted along underneath the line, checking out little fishes and other critters along the way.
Once we made it to the habitat, we circled the cameras so hopefully some of our family would see us. Then we removed our gear, refilled our tanks, and washed our wetsuits out on the wetporch. After some safety briefings from Jay and Thor, we settled in for a nice bag of dinner. Right now we are all occupied with watching the fishes through the portholes, they seem to be watching us too.
Tomorrow will be an early day, likely a 6am dive time, though this will be better than the 3am wake-up call last night courtesy of the Pawlik group. They really scared Deron; you could barely hear my yells of fury over his pleas for help.
Well, tomorrow by this time I will officially be an aquanaut. I’m looking forward to several more hours of dive time on the bottom, hot lunches and dinners here in the habitat, and just watching the untold wonders of the wobbly wet stuff (as Alex likes to say) out here on Conch Reef. Over and out, -jp