Craig Cooper, our Operations Director has been working closely with Capt. Mark Helmkamp, the current U.S. Navy Supervisor of Diving and my former commanding officer to ensure the success of this mission. The interesting thing about this mission is that the divers, although all are qualified Navy Divers and have been for many years, are all part of a U.S. Navy saturation diver class being held at the Center for EOD and Diving in Panama City Florida. These divers have an opportunity to participate in an open water saturation dive instead of a dive that may have been done under controlled conditions in the Ocean Simulation Facility at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit, also in Panama City. Additionally, I am always very excited about the opportunity to dive inside Aquarius, but in this case even more so. I once again get to dive with the people and the organization that I so enjoyed to work and dive with for so many years.

The toughest part of every day has been getting ready for the morning dive. After a few days of diving, our wetsuits have chafed our skin in various places, and pulling on a damp, stinky wetsuit (2 cups coffee + 5 hour dive) is a chore that runs up to 20 minutes per person. Once we’re finally mated to our customized, 92lb dive rigs though, it’s a relief to push off the wetporch, take the weight off, and see what’s moving about in the early morning darkness.

The morning dive is the best part of the day. You head out when the sun is still down and see the sunrise on the reef. Most of the creatures (except us) are still sleeping and we’ve got the run of the place. We look around for big shadows – predators: sharks, groupers, barracuda, snappers – hunting the reef in the early morning. It is a quiet, reflective time on the reef. We pass a sleeping parrotfish under a ledge. The only sounds are our own bubbles from breathing. Then around 830am things start to move around, the sun starts to light the reef up, the background begins to take shape. Of course, by this time we are COLD. Shivering cold. And there is still 2.5hrs left until lunch and a nap. Nonetheless, it goes pretty fast. Our morning is punctuated by brief stops at the NE waystation to check in with Aquarius and get some more air; there is a sound-operated hailer and a compressed air fill station running through the umbilical to the habitat. Two days ago we got a special treat – our surface support crew left us cookies and milk. Food goes down nicely in the middle of a 5hr dive. Then, when we near the end of our dive, we pack up our tools, leave them in a secure spot, and we head back to Aquarius by pulling ourselves along the excursion ropes laid out to mark the route. Along the way, which is about 900feet, we all look around for various interesting creatures, all the aquanauts stopping and pointing out things to the others. It is in these brief moments that it hits us: we are living in the ocean, what a cool experience.

Our arrival to the habitat is typically a mish-mash of our own stories and data yelled out to the habitat crew; they are responsible for getting our dive logs out of us so we can plan our next dive. We do this in the wetporch, a musty, damp, wet, well, wetporch; a place where we store our wetsuits and all of our wet gear. The pressurized air of the habitat keeps the water from rushing in past the ‘moonpool’. After quick wetsuit rinsings and hot, blessed showers, it is off to forage in the shelves for dehydrated foodpaks. We all have to know what everyone else is eating in case our own meal is less than appetizing. Good and bad meals are duly noted for next time. Then, naptime. Naps feel pretty darn good after 5hrs in the water. After a couple hours we wake up for our afternoon dive at 3pm.

The afternoon dive is different. All the creatures are up, things are happening on the reef, we even occasionally run into our surface support crew down from the topside boat that bobs on the mooring line. It is a welcome sight to see people from ‘the other side’. The sunset on the reef is cool. At about 530pm you start to notice that the background blue is bluer, the shapes blurrier, and the sea surface and the water column generally become one but for a single shimmery yellow spot where the sun is glancing off as it goes down. I typically stop to watch this for a few minutes. I look around and the rest of the aquanauts have stopped to watch the sunset as well. Then, a few more minutes of work before we race back to the Aquarius before 6pm (we cannot stay past 6pm or they will send out emergency divers after us; this would be bad). Along the way we see coral polyps extended and feeding, morays out foraging, basket stars creakily extending their arms into the rushing current, barracuda stalking the sand grooves along the reef. You can occasionally hear roving bands of parrotfish scraping seaweed off the reef. It is again one of those moments where you realize you are experiencing the ocean from a truly unique perspective.

You hear the Aquarius before you actually see it. You’re pulling along the line and there is a little coral ridge you go over and suddenly there is a low humming of the generators. If you listen closely you’ll also hear the clanging of mooring chains, and occasionally the scraping and hammering of one of the techs cleaning the outer hull. It’s typically completely dark by this time and we are hoping to catch a glimpse of big predators looking for a meal. Arrival for dinner is a lot like lunch. Except we now know what meal not to get for dinner. After eating and checking emails, we busy ourselves with books, dive stories, and looking out the portholes. Then sleep. Bright and early, rise and shine tomorrow at 5am for a brisk 5hr dive. That, in a rather large nutshell, is what life is like at 47′ below the surface.

While I was gathering data, I got to interact with some of the smaller creatures of the reef that we take for grant most of the time. I spent several minutes watching a 3 inch mantis shrimp run back and forth between its several holes in the reef. Mantis shrimp have retractable claws that they carry like a prize fighter just under their chins. They use these claws to hunt their prey or ward off intruders that come into their territory. If their prey gets too close or you invade their space, they give you a quick jab with their claws that sounds like a piece of popcorn popping. It doesn’t really hurt unless the shrimp is really big in which case it can give you a nasty cut. But it will surprise you if you put your finger in a hole and a mantis shrimp happens to be there. So I entertained myself for several minutes by putting the pencil I was using to take data with inside the mantis shrimp’s territory. It would come scurrying out and give the pencil a quick right jab and then scurry back into its hole then repeat the process every time I moved the pencil around. A very entertaining way to take a break between counting and get my mind off the cold.

Like every other day, today’s diving went far too fast. Hours just fly by while we are working. Today we finished working on the cages themselves and have started identifying the corals within the cages that we will monitor over the next 10 months. We will take pictures and keep records on their health and survivorship to see how the different fishes in our cages affect how well the corals survive.

While I should have been working, I got to watch a stingray hunt for food today. Like many rays, stingrays eat mollusks and crustaceans that they crush with bony plates in their mouths and usually spend a lot of their time searching for food in the sand around coral reefs. The one I watched was rooting around in the sand like a pig and must have found a tasty morsel because it kept digging and digging in one spot before it finally stopped to eat whatever it had found. Meanwhile all the little fish around the stingray were having a buffet catching all the small things the stingray dug up while it was looking for its meal. I also got to watch a hawksbill turtle cruise through our field site today. All the while the voice of Crush, the surfing turtle from Finding Nemo, was playing in my head, and I was, like, Whoa.

Lastly I would like to give props to Melissa Hicks, our Surface Support Goddess, who has been fantastic so far at coordinating all our Aquanaut needs. But where are the pizzas and DVD’s? Must have gotten lost in the mail.

On my personal voyage, the sun had set, and the experience of seeing the moon and its rays strike the sea surface from below was awe-inspiring. Equally as inspiring, but on a different plane was the enormous school of barracuda that did their best to mimic the moon by staying just at the edge of darkness and reflecting its rays, eerie! Little starships hovering just above the earth waiting to attack…hmmmm. Luckily, I was protected by an even larger school of fearsome schoolmasters, those insurmountable guardians of the Aquarius. All in all, it was an amazing experience, and since the weather is supposed to be fearsome again tomorrow, a welcome break.

This morning, at Chez Aquarius, Deron insisted that we have some fresh-brewed coffee, then lured us out of bed with hints of a warm breakfast. As visions of crispy bacon, and fried eggs danced in our heads, we, with mouths watering, sprang from our beds, only to find that it was time again to put on our wetsuits for a 5 hour swim. Alas, the gods were not with us this yonder morn, and again we had to wait out their playful toying until noon, and finally, yes finally, we got back to our site.

Alex and I quickly discovered that some little elves had run off with our tools, and so John and Alex were sent on a reconnaissance mission whilst Deron and I began patching cages and prepping the new condos for our soon-to-be clients (parrotfishes). Somehow, our tools ended up missing, but we found new tool bags with hair bands and pliers; it’s beginning to feel a lot like (someone else’s) Christmas. A long, wonderfully productive day at the site ended as the sun went down and we drifted back to the habitat hoping to catch a glimpse of our new visitor, a lemon shark. Alas, tonight it was not to be!

We took our group photo today, and I must say that although I am darn good-looking, next to the rest of these guys, I look even better, even without my beauty sleep. Anyway, tomorrow, the gods look to smile on us again, so its up at 5 am and out for a swim at 6 am.

Until next time, keep the bacon on the griddle. – Brock

We mainly feel the surge in our ears as the inside pressure changes slightly with the passing waves. It’s kind of weird, sort of like the feeling when a plane takes off. Couple that with the ominous whoosh of the surge sucking air out of the habitat, each time followed by a rushing surge of water spilling into the wetporch, and it feels and sounds like we’re in a hurricane, only 50ft below the surface, surrounded by water. It’s very cool.

We all got to catch up on sleep today, but we’re starting to get really antsy to get out in the water. In our off time we are eating, and sleeping. I think we’re starting to scare Jay and Thor, we are all wondering who will be the first one cannibalized if we run out of food.

But all time in the water was not lost today. I went out for an hour dive on the hookah rig today. The hookah is basically a regulator attached to the air banks of Aquarius by a 75-100 foot long hose. So you can explore as far from the habitat as the hose lets you. I spent my hour searching the sand around the habitat for shells, parrotfish jaws, and old coral skeletons. I watched a rainbow parrotfish languidly swim off in a sand plain and a black grouper chase around a school of Creole wrasse. As I played around in the sand, inquisitive hogfish and trunkfish would weave in and out between my arms hoping I would unearth some scrumptious bite that they wouldn’t have to work too hard for. The current brought a big moon jellyfish by, and a scrawled file fish made a snack of its tentacles before the current swept the jelly away and the file fish contentedly returned to hunting down hydroids on the habitat. Even though we lost some work time today, it’s probably one of the best places I’ve ever been stuck in with nothing much to do. But here’s hoping for calm seas and work diving tomorrow.

The wind at Molasses Tower, a nearby weather station, is now blowing at 28 knots with gusts up to 35 knots, the forecast is predicting 7-10 foot seas, so we will be kept inside for most of the day probably.

Inside our ears keep popping as the waves pass over head and suck air out of the habitat and then force water up into the wet porch with a large whooshing sound. The fish outside the viewports are moving around in large circular patterns as they are carried around by the surge, occasionally we can even feel the habitat move or shudder when a large swell passes overhead.

I think most of today will be spent staring out of the viewports, reading and of course eating and sleeping.

As our Navy Doc mentioned yesterday about living on a submarine, eat until you’re tired then sleep until you’re hungry. I think that will pretty much sum up our day, except for the occasional breaks to stare outside or read. John is getting cabin fever already and wants to get outside so we may have to stick him out in the wet porch soon.

I would also like to take this opportunity to correct John’s journal entry from Day 1, his memory may be a little foggy. What he may have perceived as yells of fury when we were woken at 3am, didn’t come across to everyone else that way. In fact it was hard to distinguish his screams from Deron’s, we’re still trying to work out who screamed the loudest. Obviously these were very manly screams though, not at all like girly screams.

As it turned out it was too early, we were ready to leave the habitat in plenty of time so tomorrow we will get an extra 30 minutes in bed. But once we were all suited up and full of coffee and left Aquarius at 6am it was all worth it. It was still dark as we left so we got to watch the sun rise from beneath the ocean and the change of guard on the reef, all the nocturnal creatures going and the daytime ones arriving.

Once it was light enough to see we began work on our cages. I have to keep reminding myself to stop and look around once in a while to see what is going on around me, at one point I glanced up and saw 2 manta rays swimming by, heading out into deeper water. All too suddenly our 5 hours were up and it was time to head back to Aquarius, but that did mean food, as we were all starving having left our snacks behind in Aquarius this morning.

After lunch we had several visitors, first our surface support team stopped by very briefly bringing gifts. After a high speed tour of the habitat it was then time for them to leave, Melissa nearly had to be dragged out by Thor, she really didn’t want to leave. Then the Doc showed up for his house call, luckily we are all still healthy so there was no work for him to do. After that, we all managed to squeeze in a quick nap before our 3pm dive. In fact life down here consists mainly of 3 things – diving, eating and sleeping. If we are not diving, we’ll eat and then sleep and then the cycle will start again. That reminds me, I’ve already eaten dinner so now it must be time for bed, 5am comes around too quickly down here. Good night.

Once we made it to the habitat, we circled the cameras so hopefully some of our family would see us. Then we removed our gear, refilled our tanks, and washed our wetsuits out on the wetporch. After some safety briefings from Jay and Thor, we settled in for a nice bag of dinner. Right now we are all occupied with watching the fishes through the portholes, they seem to be watching us too.

Tomorrow will be an early day, likely a 6am dive time, though this will be better than the 3am wake-up call last night courtesy of the Pawlik group. They really scared Deron; you could barely hear my yells of fury over his pleas for help.

Well, tomorrow by this time I will officially be an aquanaut. I’m looking forward to several more hours of dive time on the bottom, hot lunches and dinners here in the habitat, and just watching the untold wonders of the wobbly wet stuff (as Alex likes to say) out here on Conch Reef. Over and out, -jp