Next on the agenda, we had a live CNN interview with Miles O'Brien. This was certainly a first for me, and very exciting for all of us. There were a few communication glitches, but it seemed to go well enough. Soon afterwards we had a teleconference with the International Space Station crew. Peggy, Valerie, and Sergei were in great spirits as they passed over us about 240 miles up. It was a quite amazing to be able to communicate from beneath the sea ("inner-space") all the way to "outer-space." In fact, this was the clearest communication we had all week! Since we are all eating some of the same NASA space food we had a good laugh about certain meals that tend to leave a persistent odor onboard (put nicely). We compared notes on everything from zero-G during EVAs to the number of viewports available in Aquarius and the ISS. It was fun to talk to them, and they seemed to enjoy the opportunity too.

Coral data collection is hard work! This afternoon we worked together as two teams on the same site. We're getting better at collecting the data, but despite several runs for more air, we could not completely finish sampling that site before we had to return to Aquarius. We have a new appreciation for what coral scientists have to do in order to characterize the health of corals on the reef. Hopefully we've got some good data, and we'll have another opportunity tomorrow.

It's hard to believe that we're finishing up our 6th day here already. We're going to miss this place when we have to leave.