It's difficult to appreciate the vibrant colors here during the day. The sun light filtered through the water tends to make everything look blue. With our tiny lights, the waiting array of coral, fish and sea plants burst forth with new life and color. What to me appeared to be giant mounds of coral, as observed from a few feet swimming above during the day dives, were finally revealed to me as an intricate maze of small caverns, holes and caves.

It's interesting to think about the diversity of life down here. I figure that although they look completely different, the little barber pole shrimp and the spiny lobster are not all that different. Both are similar in generic construction and have to survive in the same environment. Yet for some reason, the two species diverted in their development...for what ever reason. Justification for evolution? Maybe, but I think a Master Plan by our Creator makes more sense to me. If not, why then would such a diverse group of critters be running, flying and swimming around this big blue marble of ours? It definitely makes me appreciate that life forms on any distant planets, if there are any, probably look completely different than anything we have here. Lord knows we have our own odd looking collection of residents here, from elephants to sea cucumbers. But then I guess that's what makes life great here on terra firma... diversity.

Today we received a very special phone call. It came from Valery Korzui, Peggy Whitson, and Sergi Treschev, the crew from the International Space Station! Man, what a charge! I still feel like a kid every time I talk to those who have done a few laps around the old globe. I know it might be difficult to appreciate, but I see myself less as one of them and more of what I was before, just a kid with a boyhood dream. We talked for about thirty minutes about some of the stuff they're doing up there. So cool... being 60 feet under water...talking to guys 250 miles above the surface of our planet. WOW...what a rush. Then again, I'm sitting here across the table from Jeff Williams... space walker from the 2A.2a mission. Very, way cool.

The dive this afternoon was a real working dive. All four of us headed to the northeast excursion line, 300 feet out, to collect coral data. The procedure involved laying what are known as a transect lines, then collecting data on corals within a prescribed region of the lines. We look for species, size, and percent living versus dead coral while noting things like invading species, bleaching and other phenomena. We all had to work together and it was an impressive display of team work. Granted, with a lot more experience and practice, it probably won't require as much effort and can probably be handled by only two divers. We've got a couple more dives coming up, one of which is another coral data collection effort. I'll let you know if we come up with any improvements.

We received a special treat from topside today...Mrs. Mac's Hawaiian Wedding Cake. It's kind of like a carrot cake only with pineapple, coconut and walnuts - and no carrots. It's been about the only sweet thing I've eaten here in spite of the bountiful array of goodies, snacks and basic junk food stocked in the overhead pantry. Mostly, we've been eating foods without much of a craving for the snacks. That being said, I can't wait for a good old fashion Mexican dinner at La Malenche's in El Paso.