Mission Journal 2 — Shannon Johnson: Mission Day 1: Friday, December 9th, 2005
Without a doubt this is one of the highlights of my 13 year Navy diving career. The experience I have already gained this first day is more then I had expected. This team of divers I am working with is as good as any I have ever worked with and that is saying a lot.
We arrived on station at 1015 am. Team one reached surface around 1045 as team two anxiously awaited our descent to Aquarius. We left surface at 1205 and rallied in the wet porch to store our air bottles, we then received our first brief in the escape pod otherwise known as the Gazebo. Our next brief was given by Roger inside Aquarius where he explained the important things such as where the food is and where we sleep. We then ate lunch and immediately went to work, Ira Lafever and I were the first pair of divers. Our first task was to clean the threads on the baseplate’s screw jacks. We spent two hours cleaning and then did a quick hose stretch before Joshua Nudelman and Chad Wascom took over. Terry Pace swapped with Chad after two hours to inspect the work and survey the area.
The amount of effort, support crew, and planning it takes to run a dive like this is amazing. I am grateful to the Navy and the people of NOAA’s Aquarius for giving us this opportunity.