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Journal 9- Mike Smith: Mission
Day 2: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 At the end of day two all is well. Jeff, Danny, Jonathan and Greg have taken saturation in stride. Diving seems second nature to them even though some are relatively new to scuba. Communication, which is so vital to a smooth mission, is easy and buddy teams are very clear about their dive objectives. I don't want to jinx the rest of our stay but it looks to be a very easy run this time. It's nice to get back down to stay with our old friends. The crew of Aquarius has come to recognize and love some of the resident fish that are here year after year. The Spanish Hogfish, Trunkfish and French and Gray angels are like dive buddies while we're out cleaning growth from the habitat. I know they hang around to steel nibbles as we knock barnacles from valves, but it's cool to have them follow us around anyway. I happened upon a long lured frogfish who has taken up residence on part of the habitat baseplate. It blends perfectly with some of the green tube sponges growing on one of the supports. Just by chance, I put my hand down next to him during a dive and he moved. I never would have seen him otherwise. At any rate, he's been sticking around for the last couple of days and I check to see if he's there each dive. We've decided to name him Herbert (pronounced herbit) as long as he stays. The water is incredibly warm right now. It's around 83 F with an occasional upwelling of cooler water. It's no problem at all to stay in the water for three hours with a 3 millimeter thick wetsuit. The visibility so far has been fair and as always we're hoping for the super clear, 100 plus foot visibility water. More tomorrow.
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Mission
Date: July, 2002 Mission Summary Aquanaut Profiles Expedition Journals Mission Pictures |
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