Mission Journal 3 — James Lindholm: Mission Day 3: Monday, November 14th, 2005
Day Three at the Aquarius Undersea Laboratory…or, considered in toto, Day Twenty-Three for me (this is my 3rd saturation mission to Aquarius, with previous missions in 2001 and 2002). Twenty-three days of waking up beneath the waves…twenty-three days of extensive data collection…twenty-three days of an opportunity that is currently available nowhere else in the world.
In an age of increasingly-automated oceanographic instrumentation, Aquarius continues to make human habitation of the aquatic world possible. While terrestrial scientists have been observing living organisms in their natural habitats for centuries, opportunities for sustained observations of marine creatures have been few and far between. But Aquarius makes it all possible.
We wake up with the fishes, we swim all day with the fishes, we eat lunch with the fishes, and we sleep with the fishes. We have tagged more than 30 fish this mission so far, and conducted more than 25 20-minute behavioral surveys. Given the strong winds and high swells currently raging overhead, we would likely not even have been out on a day like today were we diving from the surface.
All hyperbole aside, Aquarius really is unique. If you are reading this mission log, then you probably already know that. But spread the word.