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

Hello All:  This is a great experience, and I can’t believe I’m actually living underwater and can stay as long as I want… I swear I could work all day and forever if we we’re allowed — this should be no surprise to those of you who know me too well! It’s the most incredible experience to be able to work continuously and not have to stop, except to get more corals to transplant and fill my tank.  And talk about filling my tank, all you have to do is pop up under a “diving bell” kind of chamber (the ‘gazebo’), plug in to the fill hose and wait a few minutes, then you’re off again for another two hours of work — imagine that!  It’s like a dream come true, almost uninterrupted work.  Now I just need a habitat next to my coral nursery in Key West, and I’ll be all set. I’ll never have to surface and you guys won’t have to worry about me.  Enough of the day-dreaming.

Today we got about 23 corals secured to the reef, of course they are the corals from our nursery at the Foster Docks in Key West. Our babies look very happy at their new home in 50+ feet deep, with lot’s of fish and interested four-eye butterfly fish “kissing” them to welcome them to their new home.  We have a resident “goliath” grouper around the habitat that makes guest appearances in view ports and in the wet porch, crusing tarpon that do “fly-bys” all day, a school of snook in the nearby grove, schooling permit under the habitat, and far too many fish to list them all everywhere.

The reef looks pretty good so far with blue water and good clarity, and we had some upwhelling around mid-day today that made us a bit cold for a while. The Sid sids are blue-ing already and the Agaricia agaricities are paling, but everything else looks pretty healthy and good. One report of a disease outbreak, black band on Dichocoenia skokesii, was observed during our training dives session to the South of the habitat. I observed on Sid sid with dark spot disease, but not much else since.

I’ll check back in soon, but others are waiting to blog as well, so it’s time to close out for today.  More news tomorrow.  Cheers, Lauri Mac