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NEEMO 7 |  | | NEEMO
7 crewmembers wave as they prepare for a training dive off the Florida Keys. | | RELATED
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NEEMO
7 Journals
NEEMO
7, Mike Barratt
Day 1, Monday, October 4, 2004
We survived
the first day of real training more or less unscathed. We had a
brief introduction with the NURC staff, and got a feeling for how
many people and how much work it takes to put a mission like ours
together. This was followed by a swim test run by a very experienced
dive master known as “Otter.” Expect to hear more about
this salty dog. I’m not sure if he has a real name, but he
is sharp about diving and the sea, and seems way too comfortable
in the water. No “gimme’s”; we are known as “aquanaut
candidates” until he is satisfied. Actually this makes it
that much more gratifying when you get something right and he gives
you a thumbs up.
After getting
checked out on the twin tanks and manifold system we will be using
for dives from the habitat, we hopped aboard the vessel, Research
Diver, and headed offshore to Conch Reef in the area of the Aquarius
habitat. Since we are training in the same gear we plan to use for
our dives from the habitat, we were in dive skins and full wet suits;
making a real exercise in heat stress sitting on a boat in the full
Florida sun, getting the rest of your gear together and awaiting
your turn.
 | | NEEMO
7 Mission Specialist Mike Barratt. |
What a relief to get
in the water! It is great to dive below the chop and slop of the
surface waves and drop toward the reef. We did a few drills sitting
on the bottom, making sure we could reach our valves and regulators,
clear our mask, buddy breathe, and manage our buoyancy.
Diving in saturation
basically means we remain at a depth where our bodies become saturated
with nitrogen to the point that we cannot come to the surface without
a long period of time at intermediate pressures to gradually breathe
out the excess nitrogen. This avoids decompression sickness, or
"the bends." For our NEEMO mission, where our habitat
is about 45 feet deep, we remain at depth and save our decompression
until the end of the 11 days, so we only pay once. But it means
we live in a virtual box constrained by depth; we cannot go deeper
than 95 or shallower than 40 feet. As such, buoyancy control is
really important to us, to avoid rising to the surface or sinking
below our limit. This is one of the practices we must nail down
during these training dives from the surface and follow cold, no
exceptions.
After the dive, we spent
the remainder of the day doing medical training with Dr. Anvari
and our own crewmember, Dr. McKinley. The focus of our mission is
telemedicine and telerobotics, and one of the things we are learning
is to perform a gall bladder removal through endoscopes following
the guidance of a surgeon (Dr. Anvari) over a broadband internet
connection. Just like the mission, it's all about shifting gears.
The variety, of course, is part of what makes the job fun and interesting;
there's no such thing as a routine day.
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