The first day of a mission always seems to be the longest day for me. My day starts extremely early and ends just before the next day begins. Not that there is anything wrong with long days, especially when you’re going into saturation.

Today the Aquanauts finished up their training dives around 1100 and came to the habitat to start their saturation. They need to keep both the topside support and the inside techs abreast of their comings and goings while in saturation. As always, they were excited to begin our five day mission. Craig, Jim, Chris, and Mark had a full day diving scuba. 110 feet of sea water (fsw) for 210 minutes and a hookah dive this evening. I stayed back to tend to other duties with the habitat. Tomorrow is when I’ll get a chance to go out and do a little maintenance on the valve’s and other plumbing we have, to keep the habitat from being over grown with sea-life.

I once made the comment that Aquarius was a maintenance nightmare. That’s a little harsh. It is a lot of work, but we keep up with it on a daily schedule and for the last few years, tech life has been good.

Just one more thing to add here. The fish are all over the place, Schoolmasters, Brown and Blue Chromis, Snapper and many more fish. I can’t wait until tomorrow.