All the night diving paired with the day work is starting to take a toll. Research continues to go well, though. We are getting great coral feeding footage, flow data, and zooplankton samples. So far most of our work has been within 100 feet of Aquarius. Today, we will start making more "excursions" (that's what we call dives from Aquarius) to remote locations to work at our coral growth study sites.

When we work around the habitat, we can use an umbilical air supply on a 100 foot hose from the habitat, with just a small backup tank. However, long excursions require us to don a lot of heavy gear. Because this is saturation diving all the gear has to be redundant in case of a system failure. For us, the surface is not a safety option. The closest help available is either a dive buddy or the habitat. Therefore, our scuba gear includes 2 large air tanks, two regulators, an emergency pack (surface buoy, VHF radio in an underwater housing, and lights), and two "cave diving" line reels for excursions away from pre-established habitat excursion lines. All this adds up in weight pretty fast, about 100 pounds! However, in the water it's not too bad, and swimming is easy.

John and I went for a long swim to 70 feet deep, to take our first good look at one of the coral growth study sites. Soon after arriving, we heard a loud underwater siren - a signal for us to return toAquarius as soon as possible. After returning, we learned that the habitat had lost power. Under any unusual circumstance, like a loss of power, all divers are recalled for safety reasons. After some brainstorming between the NURC habitat technicians (the "habitechs") and mission control (back in Key Largo), the problem was quickly identified and solved. Soon we were back in the water. This exercise made us all realize how important safety protocols are.

Off to get ready for a dive, again.