Jim and I are in for the day, we had a nice five and a half hour dive this morning. We did lots of surveying and picture taking. These last 3 days have flown by. We’ve used at least 90% of our available dive time and accomplished most of our tasks down here. I’m still thrilled about being down here. I was warned that I would get worn out and tired, but those are things I can deal with as long as I get to be in the water. Last night and the night before, all four of us went on night dives. How incredible! We were looking for coral recruitments at depths of 90, 70, and 50 feet. We used these blue lights with yellow face mask filters. They acted just like black lights and made all the corals fluoresce. We were then able to count and identify the corals in our quadrats. The neat thing was seeing all the other organisms fluoresce, things like tubeworms, anemones, and algae. On our way back to the habitat, we kept our masks on and used only the blue light to light our way. All the coral polyps were out feeding as well as the basket stars. As I was pulling myself along I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye so I turned my regular light on and there was an octopus sitting on the reef. Jim and I interacted with it for a few minutes before it slithered away into the night. The night before, Steve and I saw a reef squid that really enjoyed basking in our light as well as 2 spotted scorpionfish and lots of little shrimp with glowing red lights as we shined our lights on them. Tomorrow morning Jim and I are going out at 5 am to try to get some last quadrats in. I’m a little weary of having to wake up that early, but I’m sure once I get into the water, I’ll be wide awake. That dive will be our last time in the water on this mission, we will have 2 hours and then back to the habitat for decompression. We will be in the habitat for a total of 17 hours while we decompress the habitat to 1 atmosphere. Once this has occurred, we splash once more into the water to the surface to a waiting boat that will take us back to land. I don’t want to go back; I’ve become so used to being in the water that I’m afraid of being land-sick when I actually walk around up there.
Day 7 of the mission has sneaked up on us like a barracuda on a grunt. It’s here before you know it. The Leichter missions always seem to pass quickly due to the amount of dive time that they put in. Keeps everyone busy. We definitely see signs of survival of the fittest on the reef surrounding Aquarius. We constantly see yellowtail snapper with chomped on fins and other body parts. They’re the ones that got away. Last night a shark was spotted through the bunkroom view port. It wasn’t close enough to tell the species. The next morning we noticed that one of the larger snook had some very deep mouth shaped (as in shark mouth) gashes in it. His fins were pretty battered, too. It looks like he barely got away.
We commonly see fish with hooks and wire leaders in their mouths. The Aquarius is in a Research Only Area designated by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Fishing, diving, anchoring or boat mooring is prohibited so as not to disturb the scientific studies taking place. Despite this, some folks come in and violate the rules. The fines can be stiff when caught and we hope to spread the word concerning the area being Research Only.
I got a night dive in Friday night. I was cleaning the open bottom bell (an underwater air space near the habitat where Aquanauts can talk to one another) and the usual cast of characters came parading by. First was a giant hermit crab sporting a horse conch shell for a house. Then a smaller hermit crab cousin of his sauntered by. This one had a shell festooned with two anemones attached to it. One anemone was bright orange, the other yellow. It reminded me of a Key West Fantasy Fest Parade participant. A regular customer around here showed up also. He likes to bury himself near the open bottom bell. He (or she) is a large southern stingray with an unusual split on the forward part of his body, between the eyes. It’s all healed over, so it’s hard to tell if it was a birth defect or an old wound.
Time for the Aquanauts to return from a night dive. Back to work.
And thanks for the delicious lasagna and carrot cake Sue!
t’s already Day 6, and it’s a beautiful sunny Saturday. At least that’s on the surface and some of that we can tell here on the bottom. Looking up at the surface it’s clearly quite calm today and the wavering spot of the sun is appears as a bright patch on the surface. One way to tell that it is Saturday is that during our dives we could hear many more boat engines today than on the weekdays. Even though the boats are not directly overhead (or at least they shouldn’t be inside the research area) the motor noise carries far underwater and it’s always a good idea to look up and check just in case. The early dive this morning was quite interesting because an especially cool, murky layer of water had moved onto the reef. We could see a layer of suspended particles in the top few meters of the cool water layer, and when this cool water spread up the reef we could clearly see the cloudy layer in the low lying depressions and grooves on the reef. As we swam over the reef it looked almost the way fog or smoke hugging the low valleys of a mountain side would look from an airplane. These thin layers right along the thermocline are likely to be full of phytoplankton and zooplankton (that’s why they appear cloudy). So in addition to the dissolved nutrients that are brought onto the reef, the cool water layers can be transporting important food particles for the reef suspension feeders as well as larvae of invertebrates and fish. There are many interesting and important implications of this transport; one is that periods of strong upwelling are likely to correspond to episodes of high delivery of new fish larvae onto the reefs. Another is that the supply of larvae (at least for some types of larvae) for the reefs can be coming from far offshore and from reefs far ‘up stream’ in the Florida current.
Here we are half way through our stay here in Aquarius, I’m very sad, but I have to look at the bright side, I still have 4 more days of diving. We have been in the water over 30 hours and accomplished so much. BOA is out and surveyed, we’ve taken 10 pictures at each node making that 1000 pictures and we’ve tied each array tightly to the reef in case of a storm. Tomorrow we are heading deep to look for certain species of algae that Jim Leichter samples for nutrient analysis. We also have a night dive scheduled where we will be using blue lights to look for juvenile corals. I’m excited about the night dive; lots of marine organisms become active at night and feed. Time goes by so quickly when I’m out diving. I wish I could slow it down and make this last forever. During my time in the water, I’ve been able to watch and interact with a lot of organisms. Yesterday, I interacted with a Hawksbill turtle. I was watching Dale take a compass heading and something brushed against me. I turned around to see this 100 pound turtle next to me. He hung around for a little while and then gracefully swam away. Today I found a porcupine fish getting cleaned by a cleaner shrimp; of course I coerced him to puff up. Dale took a picture that I will try to get on the web site soon. I’m still really happy to be down here and I’m having a great time. Time for bed!
More cleaning of the pipes and valves. Seems the habitat technician’s job is never done. And we love it that way. Didn’t see the tarpon or the big stingray today, but the permit were playing under the habitat. Had visitors from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at Aquarius today. Seems really odd to have company show up while you’re living and working underwater. Always glad to have company though, means somebody knows we’re here…Just kidding; our surface support is one of the best! It’s strange how the little things in life are really missed down here. An example is one of the Scientists is craving a cheeseburger from a fast food joint…Go figure. Found one of the most interesting and abundant invertebrates and probably one of the least noticed by me. Tunicates are animals that attach themselves to anything and usually have two or more large holes, one is the incurrent or buccal siphon and has a gill net inside for removing food and oxygen; the other is the excurrent or atrial siphon used for the discharge of water and waste. They come in all shapes and sizes, but the one I noticed was by our battery pods when I was cleaning on the starboard side aft. At first I thought it was a sponge, but the opening closed when I got near it. I watched for a moment and the siphon openings opened back up. That’s when I really noticed the beauty of the Giant Tunicate (Polycarpa spongiabilis). Very colorful and surprising intricate since it’s only about two inches tall. Most Giant Tunicate grow to a maximum of three to four inches tall, but this one is smaller. Also found two Slate-Pencil Urchins (Eucidaris tribuloides) which have thick, blunt spines on their bodies and move them pretty fast for an urchin. Both were hidden really well in the piping of Aquarius so I can see how far they move in the next few days. Our Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber has made it 64 centimeters in 4 days! More to come tomorrow.