TRAINING DAY 4: WELCOME TO AQUARIUS!

We dove in the Kirby Morgan helmets again today, but this time down to Aquarius! It was my first time to the undersea habitat, my future home, and it was surreal. I felt like a fish finding the toy castle in the fish bowl. 

Even though I'd viewed plenty of photos of the habitat before the trip, seeing the structure appear out of the blue (literally) and swimming alongside it was nothing like I could've imagined. Underwater for the last 21 years, it's a living reef, covered in corals, soft sponges, and other marine life. Fish swam everywhere, accustomed to divers' presence. We saw a goliath grouper, tarpon, snook, a sea cucumber, and many more marine creatures. 

Today Aquarius staff were installing equipment (including the microwave!) inside the habitat. I waved at them and they waved back through a port window. Other divers were outside cleaning the sides of the habitat. Two Bonnet Rouge cameramen joined us. 

It really does look like this! The Aquarius undersea habitat. Photo credit to NOAA.

Swimming up to Aquarius for the first time, I felt like a fish finding the castle in the fishbowl.

It takes a team to put this suit on! Thanks to Liz (right) and Navy diver Hunter for helping. Photo credit to F. Cousteau.

About to head into the water. It looks like I've a mustache, but that's just the nose clearing device. Photo credit to F. Cousteau.

Back on the dive boat, the aquanauts took turns operating the air supply box and talking with the diver in the water over the communications line. I really enjoyed being on the radio; it's fun to hear divers describe what they are seeing. 

Our gear from Oceanic arrived yesterday screen printed with the Mission 31 logo, so today we all wore matching fins, wetsuits, and booties. We looked like a team! More photos of the team gear to come. Also, more videos to come! Back at the house, the Bonnet Rouge team continued to edit footage from today. 

That's me! Descending to Aquarius. Caught on film by the Bonnet Rouge crew.

Matt editing footage from today. That's me on screen! There's much more amazing footage yet to come from the Bonnet Rouge team.

Here's a quick clip of my descent to Aquarius (with director's commentary), filmed by the Bonnet Rouge crew on the RED camera. The team is still hard at work editing footage from today.

More high speed video tests

I've also uploaded a video (below) that we took yesterday with the Edgertronic high-speed camera. Sam, our Mission 31 mascot, proved a fascinating subject. We filmed her lapping up milk in the video below,at 700 frames per second. Who knew dogs tongues worked that way? Only after watching the video did I realize that their tongues curl backwards, forming a ladle shape when lapping up milk! 

Stills from Edgertronic high-speed camera footage of Sam, the Mission 31 mascot, lapping up milk. These were taken with a 50mm Nikon lens at 700 frames per second and a shutter speed of 1/1400 seconds.

Right now the plan is to tether the camera (via it's underwater housing) to the habitat for power and ethernet connection. But it's also possible to power the camera with batteries inside the case, and maybe connect the camera to a small screen inside the housing. I saw Eric Cheng do essentially this with an iPad and wireless router. I wonder if I could plug the camera's Ethernet into a Nokia smart phone via an adapter that went to the phone's miniUSB.

The scene: Sam in front of the Edgertronic.

From left to right, Sam, Matt, Billy, and me filming a scene with our mascot Sam on the Edgertronic. Photo credit to Carrie Vonderhaar.

Tomorrow we'll dive back to Aquarius in the helmets and take a peak inside the habitat. After this week we should all be comfortable in the helmets and know what to do in the unlikely event that something goes wrong. I'm also working on adjusting the weights I use to dive in this gear. When diving you need extra weights to overcome your body's neutrally buoyant to reach the bottom. Fine-tuning how much weight to add is mostly a trial-and-error process. Today, to compensate for the 5mm wetsuit and new gear, I added 10-lb weights and sunk like a rock. Tomorrow I'll try 6 lbs. I can't wait to spend more time around the habitat. 

I'm exhausted.  Good night -- off to bed.