Day 8

We are now in our final full day of work here in the habitat. For those unfamiliar with saturation diving , we can work for a full day today, then until 10 AM tomorrow. This schedule allows for 6 hours at storage depth (i.e. inside the habitat) before we begin the 16 to 18 hour decompression cycle. This ensures that all the nitrogen that we have absorbed while living at depth exits our body without causing decompression sickness ("the bends").

The science crew seems to have caught its second wind. We are still tired, but not exhausted. Ken and I are working the late shift, usually diving from 10 PM to midnight or 11 PM to 1 AM. Then it takes about an hour to get out of our gear, shower, and break down the equipment before we can go to sleep. This isn't so bad, I actually feel worse for Dean and Matt who have to be in the water at 10 AM the next morning. I am definitely becoming more of a night person.

I should make a note here about diving under these conditions. I used to love diving, and I still do, but after 7 days it is a chore to get in the water. The first couple of days are fine until the novelty wears off. After day 3 or 4, it becomes a grind to put on a wet bathing suit and wet wetsuit. You start to dread the feeling and smell of your equipment. Once you are in the water everything is fine again, the old feeling of weightlessness returns and the water is your friend again. It's really the anticipation that is the worst of it. There's no use in complaining, though, the extra bottom time is why we are here. There would be no other way to collect these data from a surface based mission. So from a scientific perspective, the discomfort is well worth it.

The life around the habitat continues to amaze me. We were visited by a small (8 to 10 foot wingspan) manta ray. Very cool, another first for me. Night diving here is as impressive as diving during the day. The water is loaded with plankton which are attracted to our dive lights. The feeling of night diving is that of being pelted with rice as the plankton zoom about. The reef itself becomes unfamiliar and spooky at night. From our experimental site, we can see the faint silouhette of the habitat. It looks gloomy and haunted. Even the small fish are different, somehow more ominous. There is just something unsettling about being an intruder in a dark alien world. Maybe it's fatigue. Maybe it's the fish and other critters I've seen swim out of the murk (murk being relative here in the Keys) playing havoc on my imagination.

Life in the habitat continues as before; a much less impressive sight than the reef. The freeze-dried food has lost all its appeal. Even loaded with hot sauce, there's only so much you can do with dehydrated meat. I would give one of my air cylinders for an apple or orange. Thank God for hot chocolate and candy bars.

Oh yeah, we are here for science. Right? The data continue to roll in. From our perspective, we are being unexpectedly productive (the view from the surface may differ). It's not that we had such low expectations from ourselves, but our equipment has been exceptionally stable. Day in and day out, everything seems to keep working (Day 2 not included). Even the batteries that run our anemometers seem to have extra long life down here. While I am happy with the performance of our scientific gear, I am thoroughly impressed with the habitat and its crew. Everything here (computers, external connections to the reef, electricity) works as advertised. Our data collection is limited only by our physical ability to stay out in the water, not by any limitation posed by the habitat or crew.

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to write some more coherent thoughts during decompression. For now, these assorted paragraphs will have to do.