Mission & Project Info | NOAA’s Aquarius Undersea Laboratory
Mission Blog

When I mention that I’m a field marine biologist, I often get ribbed about being paid to vacation. Sure, my study sites read like a list from the Beach Boys song ‘Kokomo’, but it’s really not as glamorous as it sounds. Admittedly, there are times when we see dolphins, manta rays, and the rare whale shark, but when you have 20m of survey left to do and 1000psi of air, you can forget about frolicking with that hammerhead shark. It’s heads-down and collect data all the way, baby.

Despite my cynical nature, I was intrigued when I received the summons to embark on an Aquarius mission. To live and breathe underwater for 10 days is pretty amazing, and I wondered what kind of cutting edge science we’ll carry out, to make all our mindblowing discoveries about sponge biology. Visions of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea swam across my fevered imagination.

I soon discovered that the main advantage of an Aquarius mission is that in a short period of time with little manpower, it is possible to accomplish all the various little tasks that usually take weeks and a full lab team to do. Tasks that although necessary and vital for the successful completion of our experiments, are rather unfortunately mind-numbingly tedious.

Consider a typical work day. 6 + 2 hours of pounding 8” galvanized steel stakes to mark out barrel sponges (Xestospongia muta for you spongephiles) and 2 other species within our survey plots. Sometimes, we spice things up a little by pounding nails to attach 160 cage bases to the reef bottom (also for 6 + 2 hours). For a real treat, we can choose between scraping biofouled tags clean and attaching cage tops glove-free in a fire-coral filled environment. Live dangerously. Now, I could expound on the delights of a well-balanced 3 lb sledgehammer, but I wouldn’t want to bore you with all the technical details.

Of course there are other perks (a nicely balanced sledgehammer is still important though!). Being on the reef 8 hours a day affords one views that a diver wouldn’t normally see. Such as the school of a gazillion (okay, ~50) French and Gray angelfish hanging out over our survey plot at 90ft. Puts paid to our hypothesis that there are fewer sponge predators at the deeper depths. Watching the goliath groupers hunt at night, and then having one of them within petting distance hanging out in the poop house (a.k.a. the gazebo in local parlance). Well, maybe that was a little creepy. Swimming with Southern rays and eagle rays that honestly don’t give a hoot about whether we are there at all. Watching Agelas conifera and X. muta spawn on the reef. But most of all, being surrounded by bazillions (that’s more than a gazillion to you) of our beloved sponges in all their multi-colored, water pumping, secondary metabolite-producing glory. It’s a wonderful thing to see.

P/S: Our fine hab techs do an admirable job keeping us sane. That and copious amounts of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows.