Anyway, on Wednesday night we had a bit of excitement. About 1:30 in the morning one of the generators shut down and the power went out. We were told in training that this really isn't a problem, since there are lots of back-up systems, but I have to admit to feeling just a little bit nervous anyway. Jim and Byron got up and talked to the shore support team, and Mike, Paul and Jay came out on a boat, in rough weather, in the middle of the night, to restore power, which they did quickly. On behalf of everyone down here

- THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

On Thursday, Beth and I went out to do some profiling deeper than we have been so far - our maximum depth on the dive plan was 110 feet. It was fun to venture a bit further away from Aquarius (always keeping in sight of the guide line or our reels, of course). The area we visited was beautiful - high coral cover and lots of fish. We also saw a hawksbill turtle, which was really cool. I did my best profile ever - definitely a 5.9 for technique and a 6.0 for artistic interpretation! Seriously, coming to Aquarius has really improved my diving skills, both through the excellent training and through the time we get to spend in the water.

In the afternoon I was doing my duty as chambermaid with Janet. This is the first time we have tended the experimental coral chambers without the Professor looking on - but I think we did a good job. The corals are getting noticeably bleached, which is nice - a relief to be able to see that the experiment is working. It is also nice that they are bleaching fairly gently; this means that they are very likely to recover at the
end of the experiment, and we intend to use underwater cement to glue them back on the reef. Sometimes science does require you to be destructive (on a small scale) but we all prefer to avoid killing corals. We still had some time left when we were finished, so we took our magical PAM machine around and looked at photosynthesis in some wild coral colonies. It's always good to have as much control data as possible, for comparison - plus we might find something else interesting! We also took the opportunity for a bit of reef tourism. Almost my favorite thing to do here is to look into little holes and crevices in the reef with a dive light. You see something cool almost every time - an anemone with tiny striped shrimp living among its tentacles; a banded coral shrimp with loooooong white antennae; a bright red hermit crab in a bright green snail shell; a brown sea cucumber with yellow spots. It's great to check out the small stuff! (Perhaps I just think that because I'm on the small side myself...)