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

Ron Peters Asks:Breathing mix question. What atmospheric mix are you using inside the habitat? Are you using the standard 21% or a richer mix? Is the same breathing mix used in the tanks during the aquanauts excursions outside the habitit? What is the deco profile for recovery of the aquanauts at the end of the mission? 

Dear Ron

Aquarius, with its open ambient wet porch, has a constant air bleed throughout a mission, good old 21% like we breathe on the surface.  The partial pressure of oxygen however is .45ATA and not .21 ATA because of the 47′ depth inside Aquarius.  Nitrox or enriched air could be used for a habitat mix and diver breathing gas, this has been done in previous habitats in the 70′s with depth ranges of >50′.  Mixes were selected to provide partial pressures of oxygen similar to atmospheric air at .21 ATA for that depth-called “normoxic” mixes.  

Aquanauts are breathing air in their tanks, we have two high pressure compressors on the Life Support Buoy overhead, with 86,000 cu ft of storage air in flasks on the seabed.

Decompression, which was completed at 0830 yesterday morning, takes 17 hours, we close the swinging door to the wet porch, then slowly exhaust the atmosphere through an umbilical to the surface.  Once we reach 0 FSW or “surface” inside Aquarius, we pressurize back to hatch depth of 45 FSW, open the door to the wet porch, and are greeted by two escort divers for a two minute ascent to the real surface on a short repetitive dive.

Craig Cooper

Aquarius Reef Base, Operations Director

Greetings from the Texas Children’s Cancer Center!

This past Thursday marked the culmination of months of planning and preparation. It was finally time for Purple Songs to Swim! The days beforehand were busy with final checks and preparations to ensure that the space was ready for all of our activities and the two giant television screens set up to host the live videoconference with Aquarius. We were so excited! Thanks Dominic, Jim and Jesus for setting up all of the technical configurations to get us to live.

Finally the day arrived and, after a morning of dancing, singing and crafts in honor of our “under the sea” theme, it was time for the kids to go live with Aquarius. The link up went incredibly smoothly and we found ourselves face to face with Otto at the galley table. The smiles on the kids faces and their excitement was uncontrollable! Otto joked that he would have to turn down the volume on his receiving end because we were making such a commotion with all of our clapping and excitement, as the kids waved to the “undersea explorers.” It was such a special experience for them to get a glimpse of life under the sea and the work being done by NOAA scientists. It was especially fun for them to get a special tour of the habitat from Otto and see how aquanauts live and work underwater. Having the live conference setup was really neat. The kids had great questions for the aquanauts and continued to talk with me long after the live linkup as they had more questions about the ARB, and it was fun for me to see their excitement.

Probably the most special part of the day, however, was when the kids got to hear their music played underwater. Zach, whose song “That’s why I don’t eat fish” inspired me to arrange this day in the first place, was present to talk with the Aquanauts and share his passion for marine science and desire to be a proponent of the oceans in his work. A huge smile erupted on his face as he heard his music being played 60 feet underwater in Aquarius, along with several other songs. I can’t think of a better way to honor these kids and their expression than by sharing these beautiful songs, which the aquanauts have really enjoyed listening to during the mission.

This is just another example of how the work in education and conservation being done at the ARB connects on so many levels to the greater community and I was just tickled to be able to share my work and experiences at NURC with these kids. It was a very enjoyable time for everyone and such a special time for the kids to have this rare glimpse into the undersea world and the work of these scientists. We may even have inspired some future scientists! More importantly, however, we were able to create a special experience for these kids to honor them and create a reprieve for them to just be like any other kid – - playing and exploring.

To say the mission was a success would be a huge understatement!

Cassia Rye

Here we are, the 5th Day on our mission with our Aquanaut pep squad cheering us on, (this can be none other than the incredible fish community), and they keep amazing us…

Today, early in the morning while sampling with the PAM (pulse amplified modulator, measures fluorescence), we had an encounter with a barnacle covered, hawksbill turtle that decided it would be fun (??!) to do a couple of loop-de-loos around Abel.  He must’ve circled my dive buddy at least three times before he decided that was enough and continued on with his early-bird reef hunt.  Also, as if on cue, again, we had an early first-sunlight visit from a pack of spotted eagle rays, and they continued to check-in with us throughout this dive and the rest of the day.  One ray we came up on was in the midst of doing roller-coaster like sine waves, slowly rising up and kamakazi diving down, until we noticed his antics, and then he gracefully turned toward me and “flew” right over my head and off into the blue yonder. 

Well now we are only 18 corals away from completing our task of transplanting, so we anticipate finishing our work tomorrow in our early morning dive. There’s more work with mapping, and sampling the corals, but tomorrow is the day to wrap up the mission. Only one early, brief morning dive on Monday, before we start our decompression in preparation for surfacing early AM on Tuesday, June 17th. As my boss warned me, it is about to be over, even though we’ve finally just gotten into our groove.  I can’t imagine how I’ll get to sleep at night without all these gentle fish at my “window” to lure me to rest.

The wet porch goliath grouper ‘groupies’ continue to entertain us by hanging around with us while we gear up for each of our dives. The two mammoth “guardians” seemed to have taken a liking to us, and always seem to want to get closer and keep us company, continuing their watch over us. I called them our spirit guides today, as one kept nudging up to Abel as we waited our turn to dive. Ken got a video and photos of this bonding experience.  I will definitely miss these guys most of all, when we go, and somehow I suspect the feeling may be mutual!

The team in the habitat is getting rowdy tonight, lots of cheer and more stories of life experiences. It’s time to let someone else get online, so I’ll be signing off for one more night. Many sweet dreams and think …. fish!

Lauri Mac,  a pisces tried and true!

e. wohlenberg asks: As I was watching the aquanauts “go home” after a day’s work, a question occurred to me.  Must wetsuits, etc. be rinsed and dried each day, or may they stay soaking in salt water until the next day’s work?  Thanks.

Great question! The Aquanauts work long and hard in their wetsuits and they do get a bit “funky”. Our wetsuit cleaning procedure has them removing the wetsuit and doing an initial rinse in salt water. They are then rinsed in a bucket filled with fresh water. After that, the wetsuits are dipped in a bucket of fresh water that has an enzyme solution called Mirazyme added to it. The Mirazyme is the key. It kills the stink making bacteria. What a relief!
The wetsuits are hung on hangars to drip dry. They never get totally dry because the wet porch, where they are stored, is at 100% humidity. Another interesting fact is that the wetsuits compress with depth, so they stay compressed throughout the mission. This definitely shortens the life of the wetsuits.

Mark W. Hulsbeck
Oceanographic Field Operations Manager, aquanaut

Day 4 marks the halfway point of our mission, which saddens us as we are not ready to start wrapping things up just yet. I’m only just beginning to get started….

Today I had a series of preparations for corals yet to come to us from the Upper Keys seawall repair project sites, so while I was scrubbing and pruning the seabed for the next round of transplants, a small troup of reef characters decided to become my “pack” for the day. The symphony of colors included a yellowhead wrasse, a bluehead wrasse and a spanish hogfish who quickly became my buddies following me everywhere I went to scrub. They eagerly, and often agressively, kept vigil while I scrubbed, awaiting a snack of a worm or shelfish that might come available during my work, some may even have been snacking on the algal turf I uprooted. While I was working and tapping the bottom, my troup and I soon attracted more of a cast which included a beautiful hogish, dark brown coney with irridescent blue spots and eventually a french angelfish. Everyone of them wanted a “piece” of the action, literally. This cast of characters followed me everywhere I went for the final hours of my dive and I was sad to have to leave them behind, I was getting used to these guys taking up residence under my chin and awaiting the next bare patch of reef to graze over.

We received a visit today by a camerman from NBC 6 Miami who interviewed us inside the habitat and captured us at work on the reef, and we provided a successful live interview via webcam and phone just before noon. Look for a follow up segment on NBC 6 this Monday.

The days events also included a sighting of 15 spotted eagle rays swimming by in formation, and we hope that Abel captured something of this grand event.  A turtle visited our transplant site and we planted several more corals into the transect sites.  This evening we are inside the habitat, grazing on our own snacks, and watching a small turtle peeping in our view port, while the two smaller goliath groupers continue to delight us by cruising proudly, in tight formation by each view port while transiting around the habitat, (be sure to check the gazebo webcam, because they also made a guest appearance there earlier tonight for Ken’s mom while he was talking to her).

The seas have picked up throughout the day today, and we’re feeling the pressure waves or surges on our ear drums while inside the habitat tonight, but the water is still blue and crystal clear and feeling a bit cooler now.  The crew is pleasantly sharing sea stories and dive legends, I believe I could be lulled to sleep listening to these shanties, so I suppose it’s time to rest again and get ready for another exciting and eventful day tomorrow.  Rest well until the morn. 

lauri mac, aquanaut