CWO4 Rusty Deen: Mission Day 8 Thursday, June 15th, 2006
Mission Success! The past two Aquarius saturation dives have proven to be most beneficial to both the U.S. Navy and to NURC. Our MK16 Mod 1 closed circuit underwater breathing rigs worked very well from Aquarius. In some cases, the divers were able to complete over 6 hours (two dive sets) on one rig. The maintenance and pre-dive procedures between dives proved to be very simple and easy to perform inside Aquarius. The closed circuit aquanauts were able to conduct various diver task outside Aquarius, requiring only minor daily support from above. As you can see from the postings from the divers, they have shared a variety of personal comments. Regardless of how critical they are of their personal skills and challenges, their accomplishments here in Key Largo have been significant. They have demonstrated extended excursion times, less re-charging requirements, minimum topside support, and may I add, “more time to safely concentrate on diver tasks”.
We sincerly appreciate the exceptional support and opportunity from NURC. Once again, we have demonstrated the benefit for having a facility like this available to the U.S. Navy Divng Program, and look forward to sharing future opportunities with NURC.
Again, our thanks to Craig and all the NURC divers for their tremendous support and making this a successful trade.
I would also like to thank Bernie Campoli for capturing and documenting our efforts underwater. Bernie has been diving professionally as an underwater photograhper since the SEALAB days. We appreciate your work Bernie, thanks!
CWO4 Rusty Deen
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