There is a definite daily routine in the habitat, especially after four days underwater on a mission with heavy demands on your time. You drag yourself out of bed at a little before seven, wishing you still had an hour more sleep. In the tight quarters of a single aisle about three feet across, you maneuver past a few others who are just as groggy, make a quick trip to the head and make a breakfast out of whatever lies between you and your tanks. Afterwards is a brief discussion of the day’s dive plan, usually a six hour dive in the morning and a two or three hour dive in the afternoon. Then, bleary-eyed, you slide into a damp wetsuit, and gingerly put on your fins so as not to rub too hard against the raw skin on your toes. You check your air, topping off if necessary, grab your dive slates, cameras, frames and other gizmos needed for the dive. The water wakes you up quickly (but not so fast in August as in April, when I made my first dives in Aquarius), then it is off to the site to work. Every hour and a half or so, you refill your tanks at a waystation and report in to the habitat techs. They want to know whether your work is on schedule and may want to test the diver recall system – can you hear it or can’t you? After filling and taking a few sips of Gatorade, you adjust all your gadgets and dip below the water again.

After the dive, you make your way back to Aquarius, constantly trying to avoid irritating the blisters and sores on your feet or the back of your knees. You find yourself pulling yourself along the navigation lines more and more so you don’t have to kick endlessly into a current that always seems to be in your face.

Home again, there is at least a half hour of taking care of your gear and your body. Your wet suit it soaked in water containing an enzyme that gets rid of the urine - did I mention that you were diving for six hours? Underwater, there is no way to hold it for six hours! – then hung to dry. Then you shower, dry off, clean your ears, dry them out some more, get into dry clothes, drink some hot chocolate, treat jellyfish and fire coral stings, eat the snacks that someone left on the table, apply ointment to new cuts and scrapes, eat some sort of rehydrated concoction, transcribe data, and eat some more. Usually about the time you finish with the data and the food, you have been “in storage” about three hours and it is time to get ready for the second dive of the day. It is always a shorter dive than the first, but the routine is the same. Also, the aches and pains accumulate, mostly to be felt when you’re awaken the next morning by a back that won’t sleep anymore or skin that feels sunburned even though you haven’t seen the sun for days.

By day 4, whether you realize it or not, you are starting to experience the effects of nitrogen narcosis, a mild lethargy than can have serious effects. One of the first symptoms is when conversations that are unintelligible to the surface-dweller are hilarious to the aquanauts. Jokes underwater would never make it topside. In 1994, we wrote down the jokes that seemed to top the charts on the mission. When we read them again on the surface, we couldn’t understand them. I sent my boss a postcard from Aquarius and she had to ask a friend of mine what I was talking about. He had no idea, but tried to explain that it was the nitrogen talking (Come to think of it, I suspect this journal entry is no masterpiece either!)

Nitrogen narcosis is not all about jokes, though. Today, we forgot to take a couple pieces of gear to the work site, and had to return to Aquarius to pick them up. Taking data can be a problem as well. You fail to catch mistakes and forget to do things that were in the dive plan. During the later stages of saturation diving, around day 6 or 7, safety becomes a big concern for the surface support team. Aquanauts may become lax on safety protocols. They could stray from their buddies, lose their bearings, or allow their tank pressures to dip dangerously low before refilling. This is the time when the surface staff watches very closely, makes special trips to Aquarius, and takes aquanauts out behind the woodshed when they screw up.

Narcosis is not the only malady associated with Aquarius. Topping the list is “the funk,” a nasty beast that takes over your body around day 4. We have a couple good examples right now. I won’t mention Dione or Allison by name, but imagine your face at the height of puberty, or your chest being peppered with buckshot. Maybe it’s the 87% humidity in the habitat or the 5000% humidity in the wet porch, but rashes crop up in the most unexpected places. And who knows what other critters lurk in the wet porch, waiting, watching…?

(Forgive me, I am reading a Dirk Pitt novel).

Ears are another sore spot, literally. The first couple days, you notice that you can’t seem to clear your ears. Of course, they are clear, but the pressure takes a little getting used to. After that, the problem is infections. With as much diving as we do, and the humidity when we aren’t diving, ear infections are inevitable if you don’t take care of them. After every dive, we drench them with a liquid containing alcohol, acetic acid, and glycerin for a couple of minutes, then dry them with a hair dryer or towel. So far, no one is having any trouble, though Dione says her ears may be “on a downward spiral.” Let’s hope our good luck continues. Ear problems can really foul up a dive plan.

So much for whining…

Between all the daily tasks, of course, there is science to be done. One of the types of work we’re doing involves censuses of the fish community living on this reef. We have been keeping track of all the species seen during the mission and the list grows on every dive (link here). I am doing what are called Roving Diver censuses, a technique developed by the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (www.reef.org). Otter, one of the habitat technicians, is quite the “fish person,” and makes night dives that inevitably produce additional records. Several of the species were recorded while we were sitting inside looking out the porthole.

 

Fish List (see REEF site for images and descriptions of fishes): Angelfish Blue Angelfish Cherubfish French Angelfish Gray Angelfish Queen Angelfish Rock Beauty Townsend Angelfish Barracuda Great Barracuda Bonnetmouth Boga Bonnetmouth Boxfish Honeycomb Cowfish Scrawled Cowfish Smooth Trunkfish Spotted Trunkfish Butterflyfish Banded Butterflyfish Foureye Butterflyfish Reef Butterflyfish Spotfin Butterflyfish Cardinalfish Barred Cardinalfish Belted Cardinalfish Chromis Blue Chromis Brown Chromis Purple Reeffish Sunshinefish Damselfish Beaugregory Bicolor Damselfish Cocoa Damselfish Sergeant Major Threespot Damselfish Yellowtail Damselfish Drum Jackknife Fish Spotted Drum Eel Goldentail Moray Green Moray Spotted Moray Filefish Orangespotted Filefish Scrawled Filefish Slender Filefish Goatfish Spotted Goatfish Yellow Goatfish Goby Bridled Goby Dashed Goby Goldspot Goby Masked/Glass Goby Neon Goby Pallid Goby Grouper Black Grouper Graysby Jewfish Nassau Grouper Red Hind Grunt Black Margate Porkfish Sailors Choice Smallmouth Grunt Spanish Grunt White Grunt Hamlet Barred Hamlet Black Hamlet Blue Hamlet Butter Hamlet Tan Hamlet Hogfish Hogfish Spanish Hogfish Spotfin Hogfish

Jack Bar Jack Blue Runner Crevalle Jack Horse-eye Jack Permit Rainbow Runner Mackerel Cero Parrotfish Midnight Parrotfish Princess Parrotfish Queen Parrotfish Rainbow Parrotfish Redband Parrotfish Redtail Parrotfish Stoplight Parrotfish Striped Parrotfish Porgy Saucereye Porgy Puffer Balloonfish Bandtail Puffer Porcupinefish Sharpnose Puffer Ray Southern Stingray Spotted Eagle Ray Yellow Stingray Scorpionfish Spotted Scorpionfish Seabass Creole-fish Harlequin Bass Tobaccofish Shark Nurse Shark Snapper Dog Snapper Gray Snapper Mahogany Snapper Mutton Snapper Schoolmaster Yellowtail Snapper Squirrelfish Longspine Squirrelfish Squirrelfish Surgeonfish Blue Tang Doctorfish Ocean Surgeonfish Triggerfish Ocean Triggerfish Wrasse Bluehead Creole Wrasse Slippery Dick Yellowcheek Wrasse Yellowhead Wrasse Others Chub Yellowhead Jawfish Sand Diver Sharksucker Common Snook Greater Soapfish Atlantic Spadefish Sand Tilefish Trumpetfish