We're now over half through Day 6, and the time is starting to add up. We're working well, but there's no doubt that we're starting to fatigue. I'm definitely tired, but that's not terribly surprising for a desk jockey popped into a 6 hour per night, outdoor work environment.

But things continue to work surprisingly well. We've had a couple of problems with data files coming in from the logger, but overall we've had little data acquisition trouble (since working things out on Day 2).

One component of our video system seemed to be failing last night. We've got a "reference LED" that puts a small light into the field of view as a brightness reference for aid in quantifying the video images later. Apparently we didn't seal the LED in place well enough, and some salt water corrosion has been occurring. Last night, that led to an intermittent light. Today we've sealed it up again with wax (since we can't have glues or adhesives down here) and kept it powered down all day. Cross your fingers, and hope it works tonight. Fortunately, even if it fails, it's not the end of the world - it was really there just as an added "insurance" measure for the final analysis.

For a group down here dedicated to studying flow, we've had the most remarkably flow-less conditions you can imagine. Once in a while, if you really stretch your imagination, you can begin to suspect a current. Most of the time, though, it's been bath water calm. Apparently the weather topside is pretty vile, though, so we've got hopes that some movement will come our way.

We're all amazed at the size and number of fish down here. This is really a fish-rich area! All of us have spent time on reefs elsewhere and are really impressed. There's a school of at least a couple of hundred creole wrasses that seems to hover right outside our living room window. They're clearly a mating assemblage, pairing off, with an occasional sneaker male slipping in. Pretty amazing sight.

Yipes - I've got to run. I can see Chris in the video screen needing assistance with positioning a model. Off to data collection...