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

As the days progress, I realize how fortunate I am to live and work on the bottom of the sea. James and I stay very busy keeping up with everything related to operations. Several hours of each day are spent cleaning and maintaining the outside valves, view ports, cabling, and various other aspects on the habitat exterior. We also have to keep in constant contact with our surface team. This allows us to coordinate diving schedules and daily events that take place down here. The surface support crew also keeps a close eye on us around the clock to make sure everything is operating properly.

We also have a diving medical officer LT Christian T. Petersen, M.D. who is Clinical Director at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center, located in Panama City, Florida. We can give him a bit of work down here too. Surprisingly, cuts or scrapes can become infected if not treated aggressively, and our ears are the most vulnerable. Staying wet for as many hours every day means that it’s tough to dry out long enough to give minor cuts and scrapes time to heal. So we do our best to keep things clean and dry after every dive – this is an absolute must.

All in all, I can say that this has been a good mission. Th crew down here is in good sprits, and they are getting a lot of research accomplished. As for me, I’m just glad to have the opportunity to be a part of another saturation

The days are passing quickly, and we only have 2 full days left to work – today and Monday. Tuesday is a short diving day. We will spend the day cleaning up the evidence of our research (flags marking the stomatopod burrows, the rope marking the edges of our 500 m2 plot, etc.), and then we start decompressing over 17 hours. The habitat techs will bring the air pressure inside the Aquarius back to the surface pressure and then we’ll have a quick dive to the boats waiting on top. I’ve gotten used to the blue light of the ocean, to seeing fish outside the window, and to the Aquarius habitat that’s become our temporary home. I want to remember some of the unique aspects of the experience here, such as falling asleep to what sounds like raindrops on the roof, but is really the snapping of shrimp claws and oyster shells. I’ve also been falling asleep with visions of stomatopod eyes peeking up from burrows on the inside of my closed eyelids – we spend so many hours a day looking for just that!

It’s now mid-afternoon, and we’re in our 4-hour interval between dives – which means its naptime as soon as Mark and I finish entering the data! We have plankton tows to do at night so the rest will do us good. This morning with the surface team, we tried some of the more experimental aspects of the project. We “cast” stomatopod burrows to see what shape they are and if they have side burrows (we’ll see if the epoxy hardened tomorrow). We also chased larvae that we had collected last night, to see if we could tell which way the tiny, nearly transparent animals would swim (the answer seems to be: up). Later, I saw a spotted eagle ray on the swim back from one site – it’s one of my favorite animals, and aptly named, as it gracefully flies through the water. Just before coming in for lunch, I put on the hookah rig and hung over the side grating in the middle of a “bait ball,” thousands of tiny silver fish, darting in different directions and streaming by as they try to avoid the Bar Jacks and Yellowtail Snapper that patrol the edges. I took some video as a souvenir of our remarkable 10 days underwater – it’s been a great experience!

While the aquanauts have been working hard keeping to a demanding dive schedule down below, those of us living topside have been equally active meeting our own research and support challenges. The operational needs of the Aquarius team are met by NURC personnel, who keep a watch on them 24 hours a day, ferry supplies back and forth between the headquarters on Key Largo and the habitat on Conch Reef, and deal with the daily function of Aquarius and any emergencies that may arise (hopefully none!). The responsibilities of the surface scientific team are different; we carry out independent research from “day boats” that can take us to sites the aquanauts cannot reach from Aquarius, we execute a multitude of laboratory analyses, and we maintain specimens that we collect or that are sent to us by the saturation team. We also communicate with the aquanauts frequently, advise them on dealing with problems, send them supplies as needed, and see that their equipment is functioning properly – repairing it back on land if necessary and keeping batteries fresh and charged.

We also conduct some experiments as a team with the aquanauts. I have working with Alex to measure polarized-light fields in the waters near Aquarius. Light, which has the properties of waves, vibrates on a particular axis – its axis of polarization. While humans and other mammals do not detect polarization of light, most animals do see this and use the polarization information for navigation, imaging, and signaling. We measure how light is polarized underwater by placing special instruments on top of the Aquarius habitat, so that they have access to the entire overhead hemisphere of light. Then, polarization is measured at each angle. Alex, in the habitat, mans a computer that operates the polarization sensor, while I stay on the roof and aim the instrument properly. My dive buddy, Nerina or Karla, acts as an intermediary, translating Alex’s occasionally odd gestures (which can be seen through one of the habitat’s viewports) into instructions for me. Ironically, I must do the work outside because Alex, who is loaded with nitrogen, cannot ascend to this shallow location above the habitat, but it is perfectly safe for my buddy and me as long as we are back to the surface within about 2 hours. While we are down there, we occasionally pop up into the habitat’s “wetporch” to check that all is well with the measurements and to exchange pleasantries.

When I am back on shore, I work with our specimen stomatopods to examine their color vision and polarization vision. Perhaps, if time permits, I’ll describe these activities in a future edition of this journal! For now, it’s time to get back to the laboratory.

After 5 days in the habitat, much of our day has become routine (diving for 6-8 hours per day, voracious appetites quenched by freeze-dried meals, wetsuit sores in the most unlikely places). Nonetheless, each day also brings surprises and new sightings of spectacular marine life, and one could never grow tired of watching the endless rhythm of predation that plays out all around the habitat. Huge schools of silverside baitfish encircle the Aquarius, much to the delight of the flanks of large predators (snook, barracuda, jacks, permit, yellowtail) that continuously slash through the schools. We were told that we would be able to see the baitfish schools noticeably shrink each day as the snook grow visibly fatter, but they seem as abundant as ever.

Yesterday was a good day for our science; we were finally able to capture a large (about 1 foot in length) Lysiosquilla glabriuscula male stomatopod from a burrow in front of the habitat. For 2 days he had eluded our snares, but yesterday we finally enticed him into taking a baited herring sent down to us from the surface. This species lives in monogamous pairs, with the male hunting from the burrow entrance while the female tends eggs deep in the sand burrow. Now that the large male has been removed, we will monitor the burrow entrance 24 hours a day (using video cameras) to detect when the now solitary female emerges and begins advertising for a new mate.

We also exceeded our expectations by finding and marking over 60 Odontodactylus havanensis burrows. These smaller stomatopods (roughly 3-4 inches) seem to have a unique signaling system using polarized light – now that we have their burrow systems marked, we will begin experiments with the polarized light tomorrow.

We ended our day with a night dive in the vicinity of the Aquarius. While the invertebrate life was not quite what I am used to on the reefs in front of my house in Indonesia, we did have a number of interesting encounters. Lobster are numerous around the habitat (the area is protected from fishing), and a friendly nurse shark was seen throughout the dive. Moray eels of every imaginable color pattern abound on the reefs around the Aquarius. But again, the “winners” of the night dive show (at least in my opinion) were again the snook and barracuda, who seem to step up their attacks on the baitfish schools as darkness falls. We ended our dive by capturing stomatopod planktonic larvae, which were finally in abundance after 5 nights of curious absence.

Overall, the most impressive aspect of the Aquarius to me is the fact that such a small “marine protected area” (no fishing is allowed in the vicinity) is so effective in increasing fish abundances. I’ve already mentioned the abundant lobster (probably the only place remaining in Florida where you can see large aggregations of these animals fearlessly moving about), but the number of large predatory fish is truly spectacular. Most reefs around the world are depressingly lacking in large predators (they have been long ago fished out), but the area right around the Aquarius is packed with snook, barracudas, permit, jacks, and large grouper. I was ecstatic to see numerous large specimens of Nassau grouper, which is considered a threatened species throughout much of the Caribbean. Perhaps it would be instructive for the citizens of Florida to examine comparative video footage from this area and from the overfished Florida reef tract before the next public commentary on the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Signing out – time for another dive…

Wow! That’s the best way I know to describe this experience so far. I’ve been working with the Aquarius operations support staff for 5 months now, but this is my first 10 day saturation mission. Although I have been diving around the habitat for some time now, you really get a different perspective living down here. The view is spectacular! The days consist of doing underwater maintenance and assuring that all systems are operating correctly, as well as keeping track of the scientist’s location and allowable excursion times.

Interacting with the “natives” is really cool. While working outside you have constant companions consisting of angelfish, wrasse, damselfish and other assorted species of fish. They hang around you hoping to get a free meal of barnacles that are being knocked off while doing maintenance work. It’s really interesting because they “seem” happy to see you coming. Certain fish have distinguishing scars so you know you’re seeing the same ones on a daily basis. Stingrays have been present through out the week. Watching them “fly” around and dig in the sand is amazing. The one thing that is the most obvious to me being down here is just how balanced nature is without the presence of man. Every critter has its place in the food chain and their existence appears seamless with their surroundings.

Last night I went out for a dive. Staring back at the habitat lights glowing is the surrounding darkness made me feel as if I was on a distant planet. And in a way we are very “distant” from our terrestrial existence. My favorite part of that dive was watching all of the bioluminescent critters flickering their neon green and blue lights.

My favorite night activity is watching the snook feed on the baitfish. The plankton are attracted to the outside lights and the baitfish are attracted to the plankton. The snook just hang out waiting for the right moment to strike. It’s really special to see things that only a small group of people ever get to see. I now understand why everyone on our crew is so anxious to work these saturation missions, because I too am loving every minute!

I urge anyone who has ever dreamed of the ocean to explore it in whatever capacity they can. I know this mission is already halfway complete, but I’m already hoping I get another opportunity to live in the sea, even if it’s just for a short while.

Wishing everyone well from the bottom of conch reef,
James Talacek