As I awoke this morning (Day 2), the most delightful blue glow flooded the bunkroom from the circular viewport at the end of my bed. I thought sheepishly to myself - well, here we are - at the bottom of the sea! I leapt out of bed - yes, here I WAS. I gripped the edge of the viewport. A thousand vertebrate eyes stared back. Large barracuda slunk in and out of the scene. Pretty Schoolmaster snapper floated past the window having a peck here and there. Just intriguing. So much was going on outside.

Day 1 was busy. Up at 6:30 am, the team spent the first few hours getting the final pieces of equipment together in preparation for the dive excursion to the site. The weather was perfect and we headed out at about 9 am. Soon we were swimming across the reef. We decided to check the larval traps on the way out … some of the corals had spawned overnight which was good news to the surface team. Dr. Edmunds was unusually animated as this was discovered. It's always a huge relief when the biology at least works in one's favour.

Eventually, we headed toward our new "home".

The Habitat loomed out of the blue like Neptune's castle. Fish wheeled overhead like strange birds. Inside the "wet porch", we slid out of our dive gear and were given a safety briefing about the Habitat by Mark Hulsbeck and James Talasek. They had descended several hours before to make the last set of preparations for the 53rd mission in Florida. As we entered the lock and stood dripping wet, the warm dank air greeted us for the first time. It was very exciting. Around the edge of the "moon pool" were neat racks of dials and gauges, all ultimately the gear to keep us in air for the mission.

Our gear survived the transfer due to the professional handling of the NURC/UNCW crew. Once the briefing was finished, we began to set up out scientific equipment and began to discuss our "game plan". The afternoon was spent setting up fluorometers and labelling tubes. After dinner (excellent freeze-dried cuisine), we received word that the Discovery crew was anchored above.

As was planned, I donned a fullface Aga mask and headed out on hookah to meet the film team. In my hand, I had a blue light source and across my goggles, an orange filter. What greeted me as I waited at 20 m to meet my friends from above was truly spectacular. Green and red gems glowed out of the darkness! The colours were the result of a molecule very familiar to me - pocilloporins or green fluorescent-like proteins. When stimulated by blue light these molecules emit green or red light. With the orange filter, the blue "excitation light" is removed, leaving me to see these spectacular images. We spent about an hour on the bottom, exploring this underwater "disco" world. Small luminescent jellyfish pulsed by. Long delicate (but lurid green) coral fingers lashed the darkened water column. Strange fish flittered in and out of vision.

After a brief rest, Bill and I departed on the last part of the evening's activities - rapid light curves on come corals growing within the perimeter line of the habitat. Rapid light curves give us insight into how the symbiotic algae of corals process light. It is usually a good indicator of how healthy the corals are. We took our rather expensive electronics (> $20k!) and headed out to the luminescent Cylume placed over the sites earlier in the evening. We spent an hour making measurements and returned exhausted for hot cocoa in the Habitat at midnight. Needless to say - the first sleep on the bottom of the sea was a sound one!