On a somber note, all of us at NURC bid a fond farewell to Joe March, as he moves on to another job, where I’m sure he’ll be the asset he was for our program. I had the pleasure of saturating with Joe on one staff and two NASA missions, and he always made my job easier due to his dedication and work ethics. Good luck Joe, you’ll be missed.

I can’t thank all these fine US Navy divers without recognizing the efforts to get us where we are today by many others throughout US Navy diving, most notably my friends and fellow aquanauts, Bob Barth, Jim Wilkins, Chris Murray, and Mark “Kamper” Helmkamp. You have all helped forge the present cooperative relationship between the US Navy and NOAA, and we thank you for your leadership and undying support.

Hoo-Yah, Deep Sea! NURCA-NURCA, Shallow sats!

As you read various journal entries, the the theme is pretty much the same. What a unique experience to saturate, to live underwater, and do what a very small percentage of the population ever get to do. I feel the same way of course, but maybe from a little different perspective. I never cease to be amazed and enjoy God’s creation aquatic.

Aside from the diving aspect, I been fortunate to work alongside and meet a lot of good people. As I move on, I will always have good memories of the NASA, Navy and various science teams utilizing Aquarius. It’s also been great rubbing elbows with some pioneers occasionally. To Scott Carpenter, Dick Rutkowski, and Bob Barth, I appreciate your contributions to diving and hyperbarics. It’s been an honor. I’ve also had the priviledge to dive with (Shadow Divers) John Chatterton and Richie Kohler. Thanks for the braggin’ rights.

To the NURC team, past and present, I have thoroughly enjoyed working and saturating with you. Thank you again for the opportunity. I tried to leave her better than I found her! Good luck in the future. I look forward to diving with you later on down the road.

All I can say now is “Hoo-Yah!!!”

A special thanks to entire Aquarius crew and to Robert Kulback for his mentoring, diving instruction, and planting the seed deep into my character to “NEVER QUIT”.

Jeffrey R. Spence
U.S. Navy Deep Sea Diver

Thanks for all the great dives.

MDV Lyle Becker

What a fantastic opportunity it has been to come down to Key Largo, FL and do my first saturation dive in Aquarius.

We started off on Monday on shore with some great training and orientation to the habitat, as well as the diving techniques that we would use the rest of the week. Then on Tuesday, which was day one of the mission, we came down to the habitat and settled in. That evening we did some basic maintenance dives, cleaning exterior hull valves on the outside of the habitat, normal preventative maintenance so they continue to operate freely.

On day two (yesterday) four of us(Becker, Emborski, Spence and I) started off by adjusting an umbilical which carries HP air and communications to the Northeast waystation, which is about 900 feet from the habitat. We buoyed it and secured it to holddowns on the seabed, so that it will stay up off the reef, preventing damage to the coral and other reef organisms. This waystation, a small shelter identical to the Gazebo outside Aquarius, is important to future missions, enabling divers to fill thier SCUBA tanks without having to come all the way back to the habitat. Once the umbilical was trimmed and adjusted, John Emborski and I broke off and started to allign a 400 foot armored cable that had been dropped off by the topside support divers earlier in the morning. That cable carries power and data between the topside Aquarius Life Support Buoy and the NOAA Ocean Observing System module that will provide constant real time oceanographic data collected by instuments mounted on the seafloor. We were joined by Bob Whaley for that task and had the job finished by the end of the dive. In the afternoon the five of us trimmed out an umbilical to another waystation located in 95 FSW, 350 feet SE of Aquarius called the Kamper Station, and then it was back to Aquarius for more valve cleaning, this time on the BARFF (Big Air Remote Flask Farm), eight 33′ long “Amarillo” air flasks, which provide 80,000 cuft of HP air to the the habitat.

Today on day three, we swam out a number of excursion lines and tywrapped cave diving arrows to them, pointing towards the habitat. The arrows direct divers to the nearest source of air, so that they always know where they are in relation to the habitat or nearest underwater fill station. On some of the short jumper lines between the main excursion lines running to Aquarius, the arrows point to a way station that has a SCUBA fill station, such as the Kamper Station mentioned above. The afternoon dive consisted of preparing a small boat mooring site for grouting, drilling holes for rebar that will key the new grout to the existing mooring base previously grouted on the Navy Aquarius missions last December.

That about sums it up. Tomorrow, we have one last two hour dive, we have to be back at our storage depth six hours before we start decompression at 1600 hours, and sixteen and a half hours later we will surface on Saturday morning.

For now, I need to hit the rack and get some sleep.

O’Sullivan out!

Working with this team of divers has been an experience I’ll never forget. Roger Garcia is an old Navy buddy who still has the utmost of professionalism in his “civilian life”. Nice working with you again, Roger! Masterdiver Becker is still grouchy, even under pressure. Jeff Spence is either diving, eating or sleeping. I have earned a great deal of respect for Bob Whaley from NAVSEA, especially after seeing him tie the best truckers’ hitch I’ve ever seen underwater! And last, but especially not least, LT Joe O’Sullivan, who’s been my main dive buddy on every dive. Between his movie one-liners and being a Hoover with his air….He’s been non-stop comic relief during the whole mission. Thanks LT.

Okay, so that’s my Blog, the seas are kicking topside and the pressure inside keeps surging up and down. I think our ears are in for a work out tonight. Until next time, I’m signing off.