The whole crew was up early this morning, not exactly nervous, but certainly excited even though it was a short, short night of sleep after programming equipment, putting the final touches on a lot of gear, and packing the last of our dry gear in garbage bags - well into the wee hours. Anything such as computers, electronic equipment (and even clothes) that need to come down to Aquarius dry have to be double and triple wrapped in ziplocks and garbage bags before they can be transfered in dry pressure chambers (the plastic bags are needed because you never know when a pressure chamber might leak). It’s a pretty unusual way to pack for a camping trip.

The crew boat left the dock a bit after 7 this morning with our dry gear, but we waited for another couple hours before heading out to the reef. The first dive of an Aquarius mission is the one that is probably the most different from any other diving. You start up at the surface on a boat on (in this case) a lovely sunny summer day, you gear up in your scuba gear, you splash in off the boat, and head down to the bottom, all like any dive... BUT, in this case you know that you really aren’t planning a return to the surface any time soon. Added to that, between the four of us in the science crew we were carrying a collection of high tech instruments probably worth considerably more than our total combined annual incomes. Ok, marine science isn’t known for it’s enormous salaries, but we did have two acoustic Doppler current meters, a Conductivity-Temperature-Depth-Fluorescence sensor, several recording Temperature probes, and to add weight and in-water drag even if not a lot of replacement value, we each seemed to have a catch bag of sample bottles, data slates and other associated bits of gear. Well, we got all that equipment safely in place on the bottom during the morning dive, then came into Aquarius to have lunch, unpack, get situated, and then head back out for an afternoon diving and sampling session. All in all a very successful first day, leaving everyone happy to be here, but tired after about 3-1/2 hours in the water and ready for sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll be up early to get started for about 6 hours of diving.