Today I was Mark’s dive buddy all day – he always keeps us on our toes. In the morning we were chambermaids (that is, we worked with the experimental coral chambers), which was fun because I got to dive with the surface team for the first time. We were helping them to get their work done efficiently, because of course they have limited time down here. Actually, they seemed pretty efficient without any help from us. We have had some trouble working out the best protocol for sampling small amounts of tissue from the experimental corals - another part of Lawrence’s project is to test for heat shock protein expression (another sign of temperature stress) without hurting the whole colony. Anyway, today they seemed to have the sampling perfected, and Kristen, helped by Lauren, was doing technical looking things with a tiny little corer and lots of syringes. She is my lab mate back at VIMS so I know she is a dab hand at that kind of thing. Meanwhile, Danny was taking photographs and video of the colonies, and Mark and I made sure that they were all out of their chambers and ready to go when they arrived, and put them all back again afterwards, as well as doing our photography and (of course) wielding the magical PAM machine.

In the afternoon, Beth and Janet were “chambermaids” while Mark and I went on another excursion with the hand held oxygen and pH sensor. We went down to 110 feet, which meant that we didn't have much time, because we were diving what is called a “reverse profile” – doing a deeper dive after a shallower one, which always limits your bottom time. But, to put it in perspective, we had 72 minutes at 110 feet – in a normal air dive from the surface you would get 20! In any case, we had to be back early today because tomorrow we are going out at 5.30 in the morning to do oxygen profiles while it is still dark – the daily oxygen minimum on the reef is just before dawn because photosynthesis (which creates oxygen) can only take place when it is light. The Aquarius topside support team will have their full compliment of four divers ready to go early to man the fast response boat while we are out on our excursion, that team always has to be ready to go when we are out diving, in the event of a lost diver or accidental surfacing. Normally during the night when we are sleeping, two staff are at the watch desk, with two others "on call" staying at the base, along with our Navy diving medical officer, Doc Mike Oras. Thanks in advance guys!

Anyway, since we were back quite early (around 5 pm), Jim and Byron let me go out on the hooka rig for half an hour – this doesn't count against us in the dive tables as long as we stay “at storage” – i.e. no deeper than the living quarters of the habitat. It was lovely to be able to move around without a big heavy rig on your back, although you have to be very careful not to get the hose tangled up! I spent some time looking in the nooks and crannies of the habitat and found all kinds of cool looking clams, worm, corals, sponges and shrimp. Aquarius is almost like a living reef in the amount of life it supports.

This evening we had the best meal so far – Jim and Byron asked the Aquarius support team to arrange for calzones to be potted down for us! We all had a huge feast – absolutely brilliant. THANK YOU AGAIN GUYS (I always seem to be thanking them via the web – I will thank you in person when we get back, I promise).