Larval release was poor this morning, raising concerns that this year's spawning season has been shortened by the worsening seas above us. Sarah and Josh completed their morning run of emptying traps and returned with only two larvae from over one hundred traps. A hasty meeting and phone call to Peter and Ruth at the surface revealed that they too had little luck in collecting coral larvae from their traps.

Corals spawn once a year - the rising sea temperatures hasten the ripening eggs toward the month of June, during which the eggs are released a few days after the new moon. While light and temperature fine tune the actual timing of the event, other conditions such as water motion and turbidity appear to play a role. The storms we have had for the last day appear to have brought this part of the project to an end.

While disappointing, this was not a tragedy. The second part of our project involves looking at how corals function at the often low light levels of deeper habitats. The Aquarius Habitat affords us some unique opportunities to explore and experiment in deeper waters, in which normally we could not spend enough time to get significant results. Bill and I decided to deploy the first PAM (Pulsed Amplitude Modulated) fluorometer to 100 feet down along the S-4 transect line. We left at 1 pm - swam down, found a suitable coral and setup measurements every 10 minutes - back for lunch at 1 pm.

After returning, we got news we were to have a visitor - David from the Discovery team wanted to come down and talk to us. We also heard that the Doctor (Doc or Alexis) was also planning to visit to talk to Sarah about an issue to do with her ear not clearing.

David was animated as usual, expounding how great the dive had been the night before. He interviewed each one of us as the camera dive team hovered outside taking matching image through the window. After busily completing his tasks, David jetted off out the door before his time (50 min) at 60 feet was up. Doc was a calmer visit - he swam into the entry lock, calmly shed his diving gear and sauntered into the main lock of the Habitat. After sorting out Sarah and checking on me (my ears had played up a few days before the mission), the doc slid back into the water and was gone.

Pete and Ruth had planned to visit the Habitat for a conference about the slight change in research direction. An approaching squall meant we got a rapid radio call that that they were headed in and that was it for the day. Later, from emails we received, we saw pictures of the surface. 6-9 foot swells and gusting winds - poor souls above!

Down below, we readied ourselves for the night's PAM'ing. I took my camera and blue light to look for gfp varieties. It was beautiful night - despite conditions above - we cruised to the 80 foot mark and spent an hour and half exploring the abundant night life. What is wonderful about this place (the Habitat) is that you start to feel so comfortable and at one with the marine world.

Back at the Habitat, we continued our hourly excursions to the back porch to monitor when the corals had spawned. Most activity occurred in the last two hours before midnight.