The four of us (scientific aquanauts) woke at about 6:15am from a somewhat restless night and prepared for the first dive into Aquarius; I don’t know whether the lack of sleep was due to the rigorous training we’d received or eager anticipation of events to come. The day began with a hurried breakfast, preparation of last-minute items to be “potted” (the method of transferring dry items into Aquarius in large metal containers) and some unanticipated news. The telemetry between the Life Support Buoy (LSB) and Aquarius was down and we wouldn’t be going out as soon as we thought. The telemetry connects computers inside Aquarius with the shorebase 10 miles away, and provides “vital life support statistics” for the habitat, but the habitat crew had the problem isolated and fixed in no time at all. After a short delay, we were on our way to Conch Reef.

After loading our dive gear on board the R/V Delta, we enjoyed a smooth ride out to what would serve as our home for the next nine days. Conversations were rare and everyone seemed to be engaged in their own form of quiet introspection, perhaps reflecting on the people, places, events, or “luxury items” that they would miss during their brief sojourn into the placid waters of the Florida Keys.

We prepped ourselves to dive, were helped into our gear by Tim Gallagher (our co-training facilitator) and Fred Young (Captain of R/V Delta) and dove down to begin one of the projects that were slated for this mission. The first thing we did was to examine the many species of invertebrates that inhabit the exterior of Aquarius. The baseplate, which has been here for the last seven years, is home to several species of soft coral, oysters and sponges, not to mention hundreds of fish.

Tim took us on a tour of the perimeter of Aquarius so that we would be familiar with the reef that surrounds the undersea lab. We visited the “gazebo,” which is a dome that allows us to both communicate with Aquarius and to fill our tanks with air. Our SCUBA tanks can be filled underwater through the aid of a high-pressure connection and a special adapter that is attached to one of our two breathing regulators. After completing the circuit around the reef, we headed into Aquarius for our first undersea lunch.

Lunch, like many experiences here are likely to be, was a little different than you might imagine. Because the coolants used in modern refrigerators would be a safety hazard if they were to leak under pressure, refrigeration is a luxury we cannot afford. We are limited to a supply of dehydrated, preserved and pre-prepared foods that have a shelf-life longer than our intended stay. The selection of foods is not too bad but the temptation is there to sample from the assorted cookies and potato chips that line the shelves of the pantry. I indulged in a delightful tomato-basil soup, topped off with a couple of double-chocolate chunk cookies…oh well, we’re not here to eat like kings! Joe Pawlik, the chief scientific investigator for this mission and a visiting scientist from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Monica Puyana, dove down to visit during lunch and provide us with some last minute changes to our scheduled experiments. Because they were returning to the surface, they could only stay for about 45 minutes, so when they headed back, we headed out to begin one of our experiments.

A graduate student on this mission, Tim Henkel, designed a small side project to the main event of our mission, studying the growth and population dynamics of the largest sponge on the reef, Xestospongia muta (commonly known as the giant barrel sponge - see the Sponge Photo Gallery for pictures). Tim's project is to study an interesting phenomenon where starfish live inside sponges. Specifically, he wants to determine if the starfish choose a particular sponge host for their shelter, and why - or maybe they are just crawling into a good holes when they can find them ("any port in a storm"). In order to investigate this, we collected some living sponges and placed them next to dead pieces of the same type of sponge. We then collected some starfish, specifically “brittle stars” and carefully placed them into each of the pieces of sponge. We will monitor these sponges at regular intervals to see if the brittle stars choose to stay, or if they find new homes. We'll also be tagging the brittle stars to monitor their movements.