I have to hand it to the people here at NURC/UNCW. They are tough as nails. They all wear at least 10 different hats around here, and they are always prompt and professional. We may be featured in USA Today on Wednesday, but the true heroes of this story are the ones from NURC/UNCW in my book. Anyway, we were done suiting up before they were ready, so we got to sit there on that tossing boat in our hot wetsuits while we waited. Boy was I glad to hear that generator start in the nearby buoy! We all got in the water around 12:00 noon Eastern time. I noted that Mike and I, who will be paired together as buddies for the next several days, started our descent at 12:09 pm.

When we got to the bottom, it was time to check in. We stopped by Aquarius, said hi, grabbed our fancy underwater communication equipment (aka comm. gear), and "staged out" for our first excursion of the day, a site orientation to the "Pinnacle" at the southeast end of the reef. We had gotten such a late start compared to our timeline that we were scrambling real-time to re-plan our day. But first - some photo ops. Some "aquanauts first arriving" shots, then some shots of us outside "flying" in formation, etc. Finally it was time for our support photographers (Bill Todd and Dr. Steven Miller, who runs NURC/UNCW) to depart and we set off down the line toward the Pinnacle way station. We took our time and tried to talk to each other quite a bit to test out the comm gear. It really works well inside the buddy team, but is still difficult to use when talking to Aquarius or Houston.

At the Pinnacle we went through the standard procedures we learned during training. The way station, or "gazebo," is an enclosed shelter with an air pocket. You can stand inside, talk with the habitat technician inside Aquarius, and re-fill your tanks. Also, upon arriving we do a "diver recall test" - a siren on Aquarius starts whelping, and each aquanaut verifies that he or she can hear it okay. This might be used at any time to tell us to immediately return to Aquarius. It was especially important to verify that we could hear it okay in our full comm. gear, and we all could.

After finishing our drills, we just explored the reef. I was as deep as 92 feet and the dive lasted for 1 hr 54 min. We found an area where several lobsters were hidden - four really big ones that I saw, and lots of other colorful fish. Given that none of us really knows any fish species, it was interesting to identify them upon our return to Aquarius, using books we have inside. It was also really nice to have a full dive to just enjoy being here. We hadn't had the luxury up to this point of enjoying the scenery without having to go from one drill to the next.

We came back to Aquarius, "staged in," got showers and dressed, and then immediately got a briefing on the habitat itself from Ryan Snow, one of our two "Hab Techs." Ryan also majored in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Colorado. We didn't know each other, but both have a mutual friend in Dave Klaus. Ryan is a pleasure to be around, and a true professional. He also understands all of the patches and connections that will be needed to make our communications work this week, and is thus indispensable. Our other new roommate, Thor Dunmire, was outside on hookah enjoying being here, and probably doing some routine maintenance on the exterior as well. He ended up spending over 5 hrs in the water today, and we have affectionately dubbed him the "Thorfish."

The wet porch, which is our entrance to the sea, is always warm and humid. We keep the hatch between it and the rest of the habitat (entry lock, main lock, and bunk room) almost completely shut. It is open just a crack so that no pressure differential builds between the compartments. The down side to the slightly open door is that when the seas are a little high, like they were today, the pressure is continually surging. One of the first and most noticeable features of the habitat is that you feel the need to constantly clear your ears as the pressure changes with each swell up above. Another little oddity is that you can't easily whistle. I remembered the whistling phenomenon from a previous visit, but Suni and I have determined that we are going to figure out how to whistle effectively under 50 feet of pressure. Another one of the small mysteries of the sea :-)

Lunch quickly followed, we unpacked, and suddenly it was time to suit up again for our second excursion of the day, an orientation around the "Northeast" area of the reef. We saw several spotted eels this time, and a huge sea turtle floated by us, never even paying us the courtesy of a glance our way. That's the first time I've been dis'ed by a sea turtle! We spent most of the dive trying to communicate from the northeast reef area back to our control center in Houston. It was rough at times, but Houston and Ryan worked hard to get it going. This is the first time we've ever tried something like that, and I have no doubt that it will be figured out soon. We did find that it was easy to talk between divers with the comm gear without an instructor banging on us to start the next drill. Visibility was only 40+ feet, and we out for 1 hr 55 min.

Visibility was not really great, but about typical of what I've seen out here. If you look into the distance, it fades to a pretty purple. In close it's a light blue. Look up, and you can see the sun sparkling at the air/sea interface (funny how my perspective has changed - that would have been "the surface" no long ago...) Underneath the Life Support Buoy was a large school of barracuda. They are so interesting to me. They seem to just hover motionless, regardless of the currents. They are very curious, but also quite skittish. They don't like you to get too close. As the sun began to set, the colors went to a deeper and darker purple.

Finally it was starting to get dark and it was time to get back inside. We refilled our air tanks, which we leave tied down to a shelf in the Wet Porch, half in and half above the water surface. The regulators get tied up out of the water so that no little critters get in them before the next dive. The wetsuits, dive skins, boots, and gloves all go into an enzyme solution for rinsing that (hopefully) will help control the odor over the next week. Then we shower, dry off with a chamois, and reach inside the door of the entry lock (which is kept at a much lower humidity) for our real towel.

After we had all showered and dried, we started getting on the computer and making dinner. The dives weren't long enough to get really cold, but I came in a bit chilled from both. Dinner was re-hydrated Mexican rice with chicken, vegetable lasagna, and peaches for dessert.

I started working on my journal, but faded around 11:30 PM. It was such a full and tiring day. As I got ready to go to bed, I became more aware of the constant popping sound we had been hearing all evening. Kind of like the patter of raindrops. It is shrimp, all around the habitat. I have no idea what they are doing, but they sure make a lot of racket. Fortunately, it just kind of fades into white noise. I was asleep the instant after my head hit the pillow.