After our morning session of measurements, we returned to the habitat for a warm lunch. While we were inside, we heard on the radio that our surface team divers delivered some corals to the base of the habitat. We will use these corals in the chambers in a few days for our second round of experiments. They wanted to give us the corals now since the weather forecast for the rest of the week is calling for bad weather and rough seas and they aren't sure if they will be able to get out here then to give them to us. Later in the afternoon, the NURC surface staff stopped in for a quick visit to bring us more drinking water, some bananas, and a box of goodies from our friends at the surface. Our Diving Medical Officer, Dr. Mike Oras, visited us on the wet porch to check on how we were feeling (we all feel great!). He spent some time exploring outside around the habitat with Thor (NURC surface team) before returning to the surface. I even took a picture of them through the galley porthole window (Dr. Oras is on the left, Thor is on the right).

Beth and I geared up for our afternoon dive at 2:30 and went out to the S-4 line for more profiling. We went about 100 yards away from Aquarius before we decided to turn back. The visibility greatly declined while we were inside this afternoon (there are a lot of particles suspended in the water from the rough seas above…the water looks very cloudy), and we thought it was best to stay near the habitat and take readings there instead. We spent nearly 3 hours taking the same kind of readings we collected this morning. During one of our profiles, a curious nurse shark swam up right behind Beth, but by the time she turned around to look at it, it had already turned and started to swim away! As dusk approached, we finished out readings and spent about 15 minutes swimming around the reefs near the habitat and looking at the coral polyps emerging for nighttime feeding! The reef is such an amazing place at night!

Mark, Jo, Beth and I "staged in" from our dives to the wet porch at the same time. Mark and Jo got out of their gear and went inside for dinner, but Beth and I spent nearly 2 more hours swimming in the wet porch. When we came out, our hands were shriveled like prunes. This place is so much fun!