Although we only dived for less than 5 hours today, it seemed like a pretty long day (and it is still not over because Jim and I are going to do flume-work tonight (flumes are special chambers where we conduct nutrient uptake experiments and they are placed just outside Aquarius where we can get to them without diving below hatch depth).

The first dive today we all went down to 130 feet to collect deepwater algae for our nutrient (nitrate) uptake experiments, and also to collect algae analyses later to determine their N15 content (an isotope of nitrogen that is sometimes used to help evaluate where an organism gets its nitrogen, like from natural sources or pollution). At 130 feet the water was much colder and most of us were pretty cold by the end of the dive.

We had lunch today with our surface support people (Addie, Susan and Missy) inside the habitat! It was cool to have visitors! They came for a meeting and actually brought us some pizza!!!

On our afternoon dive, after lunch, we quantified coral recruitment along the temperature nodes that Jim has out on the reef. That process is tedious and we have to be almost upside down on the reef with our noses stuck to the bottom to see and count the tiny little corals. So science is not always fun or easy, but it is extremely rewarding! The best attraction today was the spotted eagle ray we saw swimming over the reef while we were counting corals!