Key Largo, Montego. Kokomo, baby

It's been great week down here in Key Largo!
I made it down here last weekend by driving from DC through Durham, NC (where I spent 6 hours visiting Divers Alert Network), staying overnight in South Carolina, and finally making it down to Key Largo. It was a long long drive. But boy was my gas mileage great.

I made it to South of the Border around 9pm. I stopped just enough to snap this picture and kept on going.

So here in Key Largo, I am staying at the National Undersea Research Center. NURC supports diving missions at the Aquarius habitat, an underwater chamber that supports six people to live at 50ft below the surface to dive for 10 days. While great for research science, this habitat is also used quite a bit for NASA training of astronauts. This mission, number 7, is funded by a grant to study sponges on the reef - everything from pumping rates (sponges pump water through them at quite a high rate) to water chemistry. It is a team made up of scientists from Stanford, UNC Wilmington, and Hawaii. And then there is me.

I'm staying right at the NURC headquarters - two small condo buildings made into rooms and offices as well as extensive dive locker and lab space. The accommodations are quite nice and I've had fun getting to know the aquanauts for the mission. They have nicknamed me "Rolex." I think I'm being useful. Either that or a source of entertainment. Yesterday and today more scientists came in - the topside support, the team I'll be a part of. It is a full crew with plenty of excitement and energy for the upcoming work.

I have spent the last week diving with Doug Kesling of UNC Wilmington and NURC. Doug was on vacation but was eager to get on his rebreather unit to get more hours underwater. Luckily enough he has a second rebreather unit that was free for me to use! I hadn't dove on the units since my certifying class in July so I was a bit nervous to get back on them. But after a successful first dive I felt comfortable and confident. I was able to do four dives with Doug on the rebreather.

Doug and I getting ready to drop into the water while a Navy boat works nearby
(Photo by Jeff Bozanic)

Doug and I taking a look at the reef around the habitat. I'm on open circuit this time (see the bubbles)

This past week has been mainly training for the aquanauts (the people that will live in the aquarius) as well as maintenance and set up of the unit. Doug and I mostly dove just to watch everyone work as well as check out the reef and the habitat. It was very interesting for me to watch the work going on underwater as well as on the boat - cement mixing, lift bags carrying who knows what down to the bottom, and divers surrounding the habitat fiddling with gauges and such.

The entrance into the habitat The white structure nearby has a continuous flow air pocket and is the restroom for the aquanauts (as well as a place to talk!)

My first dive to the habitat I actually got to go in! The habitat sits at about 50ft at the bottom. It is saturation diving, which means people actually stay inside the habitat. The habitat is about 50feet under. When you stay down you absorb nitrogen. Your body eventually becomes saturated with nitrogen (so, no more nitrogen is coming in than is coming out). This means that 50feet is essentially turned into "surface" so that diving down to 90 feet is like diving down to 40feet. This substantially increases bottom time and range of doing experiments and training. The habitat is equipped with six bunks, a small kitchen, places for instruments and other storage, and not much else. It is a very close quarters and probably feels like living in a sub.

Me, on a rebreather, on the stern of the habitat - you can make out the bunks

A Goliath Grouper that hangs out at the stern of the habitat.
This fish is larger than I am.

Inside the habitat at the wet porch looking down into the water. This is where wet gear is stored. There is a freshwater shower and dry towels to rinse of and make sure the rest of the place stays relatively dry.

Inside the habitat - the dining table

Looking out from the bunk room

The mission starts this Monday so the past few days have involved starting to set up the instruments underwater. Today we went out on two dives to do this.

The type of sponge we are looking at for the project

Setting up over a sponge

A conference underwater. There is plenty of air in there to talk above the water line.
This gazebo also happens to be the privy for the aquanauts. The fish love it.

And, of course, interesting marine life - a huge stingray!

If you would like to learn more about NURC - check out http://www.uncw.edu/aquarius/
click on Mission and Project info - go to 2007, and find Mission #7. Apparently there will be blogs posted up but you can also check out the profiles for the four aquanauts, Brian, Jim, Patrick, and Howard. You can also see them live on the webcam - which I assume will start sometime on Monday!