The time has gone by so quickly down here - we have already completed our last full day of diving. It seems like just yesterday that we started this diving marathon. Even though we have spent many hours on these reefs, we are often looking through our identification books trying to identify the less common creatures we caught a glimpse of each day. And even though we have seen them half a dozen times or more on this trip, we always stop to watch the neighborhood southern stingrays and turtles swim past us.

Tomorrow we have only two hours to say farewell to the lobster and many eels that inhabit our sites. Even though it is a short dive day, we have lots of last minute tasks to complete - finish our measurements, remove flagging tape, roll up our reels and take the last of the photos of the sites. Then it will be time for decompression. Another technician will be in here with us to run the deco, due to the fact that we are all "compromised" after being down here for this long. Our minds are not quite the same as on the surface - we forget things pretty quickly and we are just not as sharp as usual. Plus all of our thoughts are drowned out by our head radios - we each have one of several songs constantly playing in our heads. The game is to try to get everyone to have the same song in their head. Our theme songs range from "She hates me" by Puddle of Mud, "I need you" by Neil Sedaka, "Love Shack" by the B-52s and "The rhythm is gonna get you" by Gloria Estefan…why? We have no idea, that is just how it is down here.

So starting tomorrow, day 9, there will be seven of us down here for the 17 hours of decompression. While we are locked in we will watch movies, read, catch up on emails, catch up on sleep and clean up the habitat. Bright and early Wednesday morning we will make our ascent for our first breaths of fresh air and direct sunlight in nine days.

Time to watch the fish and squid before bed…