A successful mission depends, in large part, on a hard-working surface support team. The surface support team makes scuba dives from boats to assist with our research, and they help by bringing out supplies or fixing broken equipment. With just an email, they can run out to the hardware store and pick up needed supplies, assemble new equipment, or troubleshoot problems. We have a great team on this mission, including Ken Sebens and Erik Haberkern (University of Maryland) and Steve Walker and Patricia Thomason (University of Newcastle).

Today, we invited our surface support divers down for lunch and a quick science meeting (their bottom time only allowed a 70 minute dive). They wanted a chance to come inside Aquarius to see what it was like. To our surprise, they brought us sushi, sandwiches, key lime pie and ice cream! Getting all this food to us in good shape was not easy. The pie had to be folded in half to fit inside the dry pot for transportation through the water column. Probably the best way to describe our reaction was an all out feeding frenzy at the table. Until today, we were eating only canned and freeze-dried foods.

Last year, we our science team was evacuated from Key Largo one day prior to the start of our scheduled saturation mission. Imagine our disappointment and frustration. However, this year, we have been lucky with weather. Bottom flows on the reef are around 3-10 cm/s - relatively low flows (one knot currents are about 50 cm/s). Diving is much easier when you don't have to fight the current. Additionally, lower flow rates makes it easier to identify the zooplankton and coral interactions that we're recording with our video cameras. Working with equipment during high flows or currents is not a lot of fun. Large waves on the surface translate to fast back and forth "surge" on the bottom, which makes it difficult to hold equipment steady. Interestingly, the flows and water masses around the habitat are quite variable. On one afternoon swim, we often pass through large pockets of warm and cold water. The water flows, temperature and visibility can all change quite suddenly. The previous mission (Led by Jim Leichter form Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.) studied this exact phenomenon. Check out his mission logs for more details: http://www.uncwil.edu/nurc/aquarius/2000/6_2000/expd.htm.

It's now 2:00 am. I am off to bed. Poor Brad, he has to get up for the 3:00 am sample!