This morning started early, at around 6:30 with the entire crew eager to start our first full day in saturation. Following breakfast and a planning conference with our topside support team, we commenced our first dive. Dive number 1 today was a construction task designed to simulate some of the skills required during an extra-vehicular activity, or EVA in space. The crew was able to compete this task quickly and efficiently in only one dive.

Following lunch and some experiments that were conducted inside the habitat we commenced our second dive. The objective of this dive was to measure the health of the coral reefs in the vicinity of the habitat.

There are a couple of things that stand out in my memory of today. First is how quickly people are capable of adapting to a new and strange environment. Although we have been here for just over 24 hours, it is already becoming a familiar and comfortable place. The second thing is the incredible number and wide variety of sea life that live around this habitat. Although the habitat is located on a coral reef, it is an artificial reef itself and seems to have it's own ecosystem. There are literally thousands of fish that live here. It is quite amusing as I sit here at the habitat's table and the fish peer in the porthole. I feel like we are humans in an aquarium designed to entertain the fish.