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

Whoops, it’s actually day four now and we are in the final stages of decompressing, approaching four feet, so we’ll be back on the surface in just over three hours. Dewey came down to join us yesterday afternoon, acting as oxygen tender to watch over us the first 70 minutes, then staying to help take a shift running the exhaust controls. For those who haven’t already heard how we decompress, I’ll mention it briefly here. The whole process takes 16 and a half hours and is accomplished by closing/sealing the swinging door to the wet porch, then exhausting the main and entry locks to the surface through three hoses. Aquarius never leaves the bottom, we just “depressurize” the interior. Once we reach zero feet of seawater (fsw), or surface inside Aquarius, we hold for a short time to make sure no one has the bends, then we pressurize Aquarius back to 45 fsw so we can open the door to the wet porch. We are greeted there by two ascent divers, Tim and Jason have the call this time, and they escort us back to the surface on what is essentially a very short repetitive dive. If Aquarius were very deep like some habitats in the past, the actual ascent to the surface would have to be via a diving bell, but this method of surfacing from shallow air saturations has been successfully used since the ’70s.

Day two of the mission was dedicated almost entirely to our inspections, survey, and operational review, and day three saw an end to diving at 10:00 in the morning to be ready for deco. Looking back on this short mission we accomplished what we had set out for ourselves. Most importantly we conducted our special American Bureau of Shipping certification inspection/survey, as well as a visit by US Navy Diving/NAVSEA to review their waiver with us to allow Navy divers to saturate in Aquarius. Secondly we did a successful test of a new waystation with umbilical capabilities that will allow divers saturated in Aquarius to conduct three hour dives at the PTC mentioned on day one. Lastly and certainly not any less important, was that we conducted a successful first mission for the year after four months of off-season maintenance; and we had Ryan serve admirably as hab tech on his first saturation. This was also Jason’s and Derek’s first missions topside on our team, and their contributions before and during the mission helped make it a success.

Next up are the US Navy SRDD divers, coming for two back-to-back 5 day missions. They dive the MK16 rebreather exclusively, and our techs, first Dewey and Roger, then Justin and Roger, will be diving our Inspiration rebreathers, so our HP compressors on the Life Support Buoy overhead should get a nice vacation.

Until next mission,
The ARB Team

The mission got off fairly easily this morning around 0930 as James, Ryan, and myself descended to Aquarius to do our final checks before Mission Manager Chief Garcia gave the final nod to stay for the four day saturation. We had been here Sunday morning to start up all the Life Support Buoy (LSB) and habitat machinery and systems, letting everything run overnight for today’s start. The seas yesterday were easily 4-6’, not what the man drawing the short straw that had to go below deck on the LSB to start up the generator and compressors wanted. The seas today were a bit less angry with 3-5’ range, but the SE winds had pushed in nice clear water.

While we were completing our final go/no go checklist, the topside crew with Mark and Jason were potting down the last of our food and dry things, while Dewey and Tim G changed out one of the overhead boat moorings, and Justin and Roger (“Chief G”) deployed a 400’ umbilical from a waystation 300’ southeast of Aquarius. They attached it to diver panel in the station at 85 fsw, then used scooters (DPVs) to bring it back to Aquarius. That umbilical would carry me out to the Elk River Station (ERS) 650’ from Aquarius, where I could stay for three hours to do maintenance and husbandry. The ERS is an ex-Navy PTC or diving bell that once proudly served in Navy Diving, including the Sealab program in the 60’s. It sits in 115 fsw and is anchored to the seabed atop a 7’ tower, and today’s dive marked its first link with Aquarius, via the new SE Crossroads Station. Habitat techs from Aquarius, as well as Navy divers in next month’s missions, will be able to excurse to the ERS and do maintenance and further construction as we build a training site that could be used for Navy diver training with their SATFADS program.

Our US Navy Diving Medical Officer Doc Dave Johenk also paid us a house call today, and lest we not forget that we were supported back at the base Watch Desk under the watchful eyes of Nate, Otto, Derek, and Dom.

Tomorrow will be a busy day for us, starting with our dawn dive and daily checklist on all interior and exterior systems, then preparation for our annual American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) survey. It’s our ABS inspection and certification that keeps our underwater habitat in business, and involves real time video inspection inside and out, with the ABS surveyor speaking directly to the diver outside or tech inside, while watching the video from the comfort of our base 9 miles away in Key Largo. We’ve prepared well for it, but it’s the maintenance that we routinely and regularly conduct, and the skills of our staff that make it all happen, just as it has since we first operated Aquarius at Conch Reef in 1993.

If tomorrow’s ABS inspection goes as well as today’s test dive to the ERS we’ll be very pleased about our start for 2009 operations. Coupled with the training Ryan absorbs from James and I (mostly James), we’ll be better poised to take on the challenges of the upcoming missions, first two Navy missions in May, then science missions dedicated to coral reef restoration in June, and ocean acidification in July.

One cannot end the day without some mention of the “wildlife” we routinely see here at Aquarius. There are no less than five Goliath Groupers here now (Earle, Noah, Ike, and a couple yet to be named), Ryan swears he has seen seven. Earle is the biggest at 250+ lbs, and judging by the size of his belly, he just ate something of size. I was also greeted when I arrived at the ERS by a school of no less than 100 large permits ( a member of the pompano family), quite a site from my perch atop the PTC.

Time to let the snapping shrimp above Aquarius lull me to sleep as it has James and Ryan. First I must manufacture some sort of “breathe right” strip for James out of duct tape, his snoring pierces the quiet confines of our steel underwater home!

Until tomorrow, living the dream in Aquarius.