This morning's dive included the special thrill of a visit from the surface. The next NASA crew, scheduled for a mission this September, was here for training that included visiting the habitat for a short time. We saw their boat arrive, took a break from our work, and then watched them splash into the water and shimmy down the buoy line to the Habitat. It was great to see friends, show them our home at the bottom of the sea, and chat with them in the wet porch for a minute or so. Because they were not in saturation, however, they couldn't stay on the bottom for long. We had to say good bye sooner than we liked. I hope the visit was as exciting for them as it was for us. The experience also makes me anticipate that much more what a future visit by a Shuttle crew while on board the International Space Station will be like. I can now relate in a small way how important having visitors can be to a crew on a long-duration mission.

On another topic, Jonathan and I also had the special thrill this morning of seeing a very large green moray eel. It seemed to be as interested in us and our video camera as we were of it. Being nocturnal, he would only come out of his hole a foot or so. Later he went into total hiding. We'll continue to keep a lookout for him.

We finished the dive by dismantling the "water lab" construction project. Water lab was used as part of an outreach education event for school children. We packaged water lab and got it ready for pickup by the surface crew this afternoon.

Tomorrow will be a special day. We'll start out with a 0445 wakeup to get out on a dive before sunrise and study the reef life transition from night to daylight. I can imagine that a sunrise at the bottom of the ocean to be as spectacular as one in orbit - similar but different, of course.

After tomorrow morning's dive, we expect a phone call from the crew on the International Space Station... a unique outer space to inner space call... should be interesting and a lot of fun.

Tomorrow will end with more coral science in the northeast area.... hope the "weather" holds... strong currents and low visibility brings too much work.

Well, time is up... now back to organizing our data, changing batteries, and checking out equipment for tomorrow.

Jeff