Not really. In fact I am now quite content living below the surface. I am really someone now who would like to remain down here for the next few months if it weren't for family and a longing for fresh lettuce. The comfort levels have increased during the mission - procedures have become routine and the surrounds of the Habitat as familiar as my backyard in Australia.

The day began as other days in the deep. Sarah and Josh continued to survey the sites at 40, 60 and 80 feet. Bill and I hit the water and swam off to retrieve the PAM that had been left at 60 foot. Unfortunately, the probe had played up and we decided to take it back to the Habitat, recharge it for re-deploying later in the day. We then went to 80 foot to resurvey some of the barrel sponges that we had missed the day before. These sponges (Xestospongia muta) are quite fascinating - large structures (up to a metre high), tissues filled with calcified spicules and the surface lined with a red-brown cyanobacterium (Aphanocapsa). We have been working on their physiology over their apparent depth range (40-100 feet).

After leaving the 80 foot site - we checked in and then proceeded to do a transect down the slope again - pinging corals with the PAM as we went. The results looked very promising again - lots of depression of the photosynthetic yields in the shallows (40 foot sites). Even at depths as deep as 60 feet - corals were still down-regulating PS-II activity, quite an interesting insight into the light requirements of corals. I can only ponder on how many times more light corals have in the shallows at Heron Island, on the Great Barrier Reef, where I normally work.

Discovery team wanted to film us using the PAM at night, so Bill and I went out after dark to meet them. After allowing them to film us for a while, we then went off to do some work. As the left, I managed to get some strange footage with my own camera - lights filling the water with a ghostly glow and divers silhouetted as they ascended.

After working for an hour or so, we travelled back toward the Habitat. With time ticking away to the moment (11 pm sharp) when we would be out of the water for good, we met Nick from the Discovery team who had deployed a large fluorescent light across the bottom at 50 feet. What transpired was a fitting end to the work of the mission.

The light stimulated a eerie fluorescence scene that was simply not of this world. The light was so large that it flooded metres of the reef below. Large green lumps of coral glowed out of the dark, splashes of red and orange littered the bottom. It was now five minutes before 11 pm - I was finding it hard to leave. Then, as if a last great crescendo, the lights found a large anemone - emanating green light under the ultraviolet light. Bill had to tear me away - it was sure one of the most spectacular sights I have seen while diving!