A busy day four miles off of Key Largo. At 8 this morning, all four aquanauts took off for a long swim to two of our deeper sites near the habitat. To get to sites far away from Aquarius, we're required to follow excursion lines, which are permanent lines that lead to various areas. From overhead, these lines or ropes must look somewhat similar to spokes of a bicycle wheel with the habitat at the hub. It takes about 10 minutes to swim out to these remote sites, but most have a tank fill-station or gazebo, which is a small inverted structure filled with air where we can stand up and fill our scuba tanks.

We spent about an hour down at 105 feet mapping stomatopod holes to get an idea of what species are there and how they are distributed. Luckily, because of the clear tropical waters here off Florida, there is sufficient light to work but it is quite blue. After returning to the habitat, my dive buddy Pam and I put some flags near stomatopod burrows. Our surface-based team will come down later to inject some epoxy into the burrows, which will eventually harden, to get an idea of the overall shape of the stomatopod "homes."

In the afternoon and evening, our surface team came to the habitat to work with us using the polarimeter, a device that measures polarized light reaching to the depths of our work sites. I worked the computer inside the habitat that controlled the polarimeter camera, while my advisor, Tom Cronin worked with the polarimeter outside in the water on top of the habitat. Tonight, Mark and Helen have been out doing plankton tows at multiple deep sites. At the same time, Pam worked outside on hookah and tried to collect stomatopod larvae with a dive light and hand net. The hookah consists of a regulator at the end of a long air hose, which allows easy diving around Aquarius and adjacent reef.

It's now about 10:40 pm and it's time to turn in, especially since we're scheduled to do more polarimeter work starting at 6 in the morning! Looking out the window/porthole, it looks like most of the fish agree that it's time for bed. See you tomorrow.