Retrospective

It's been an amazing experience. I'm happy I did it, I'm happy I'm out, and I'd do it again in a flash. For whatever reason, I've had the ambition to do a project from this habitat for years now, and the experience was indeed exceptional. From a personal point of view, it's a trip that isn't shared by many people, to a very special place. I did it for the work there, but was equally motivated by the simple desire to do this thing.

Beyond our most optimistic expectations, the science equipment and data collection worked well. Our intent was to bring a grab bag of techniques with us, fully expecting that some of them would fail, but at least we'd get some data from the things that worked (or could be adapted on site into working in some fashion). Instead, essentially everything worked as planned. We certainly had taken care to design and build our equipment as well as we could, but we'd never used any of these techniques in similar situations: this was all "first draft". I'm amazed at how well it worked.

It's also been a pleasure to see how well we all got along on the trip. The science staff in the habitat (Chris Finelli, Ken Fedorka, Matt Mills, and me) weren't exactly a well-tested team. Chris and I have worked well together in the past. I knew Ken peripherally within my department, but that was all. Chris had been on an extended trip (the East-West program) with Matt during college. So it was an open question how well we'd all mesh. It worked fine. Chris and I had worked together with Dave Wethey to design the research, so we were "in charge" of that end. Ken and Matt got along well as a pair in the habitat, keeping us alternately amused and amazed with their ability to have entire conversations consisting solely of quotations from movies and TV shows. As dive buddy teams, Chris with Ken and Matt with me, we also worked well. We all got done what needed to be done.

The NURC habitat techs down with us were both outstanding and a true pleasure to work with. Jim Buckley, the chief hab-tech, made it crystal clear that procedures were to be followed exactly and deviation would not be tolerated. Period. And then proceeded to be a great guy. Mike Florant, our other hab-tech, was always supportive and somehow always seemed to be alert and in a good mood.

As with my previous day-boat experiences at the NURC site, I come away with a strong appreciation for the professionalism, competence, and outstanding attitude of all the NURC staff. It's remarkable to be so well supported, and to work with such an excellent team.

I hope to be back.