With the weather still poor on the surface, our usual early morning start is postponed until topside support arrives. Until then, we take short excursions around the habitat on hookah. After Bill Todd returned, I went out to film Aquarius during the day, careful not to get too high in the water column. Saturation diving is like diving in an overhead environment. Our ceiling is 47 feet, the depth of the habitat. I captured images of grouper, jacks and permits chasing after the myriad bait fish circling this artificial reef that looks like a yellow submarine on stilts.

When the boat from the onshore NURC station arrived, Steven and I went for another tour of the area with our double tanks, while the staff on the surface attempted to get telemetry back on line. Bill had a few chat sessions scheduled with the Mars Exploration Operations team and a school group from Webster Intermediate - to answer questions about living in an underwater habitat compared to living in space. During our dive, Steven spotted more line entangled in the coral to be cleared. When we returned, he filmed our entry into the wet porch of the habitat presentations I have to make later. We store our dive gear in the Wet Porch attached to Aquarius, and shower off before passing through the outer bulkhead into the cool dry habitat.

Before dinner, I take another "salt bath" to help Tim scrub valves on the exterior of the habitat. During each mission, the habitat technicians scrub these valves to keep the encrusting algae, corals, sponges and other invertebrates from disguising the habitat as a true reef. I wore through my three metal bristle brushes after scrubbing only three valves.

Bill "cooked" another Mexican dinner tonight inside Aquarius, but it wasn't quite as good as his pre-mission Tex-Mex party. Having only canned, dehydrated foods, lots of cheese, and a microwave in the habitat, nobody complains. Tonight we entertain ourselves, bunched cozily around the galley table staring at one of three laptops, with a DVD movie. The electronics equipment here is impressive, especially the telemetry systems with live video, chat sessions, and internet access connections to the shore.

Tomorrow, Steven, Bill and I hope to squeeze one last dive in before 10:00 AM. At 4:00 in the afternoon, we will all begin our 16 hour decompression, off gassing the nitrogen our bodies are now saturated with, to bring us from 47 feet to the surface. On Sunday, we will be monitored for another 12 hours at the NURC office for signs of decompression sickness before we are free to go home. I am always happy for an excuse to spend more time with the crew.