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NEEMO 7 |  | | Equipped
in SCUBA gear, William L. (Bill) Todd, NEEMO 7 mission
director, prepares for a training dive. | | RELATED
LINKS | |
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NEEMO
7 Journals
NEEMO
7, Mike Barratt
Day 2, Tuesday, October 5, 2004
Day Two in diving and
training paradise. Everyone is working at breakneck pace to bring
the myriad of details together to make this mission work: building
hardware, taking measurements, nervously awaiting overdue shipments,
testing network connections, training on experiments and serving
as subjects for same. Grabbing chow on the fly, ordering in pizza,
briefings on the couches in a small two bedroom condo - which now
sleeps nine and accommodates countless transients - has become the
routine. Sorta like campaign headquarters, but everyone's on the
same page. The energy is palpable!
In the midst
of this we had a couple of briefings from our dive master, Otter,
and his twin Ross Hein (been everywhere, done everything) before
heading once again out to Conch Reef for a pair of training dives.
Today's menu included working the cave reels, which allow us to
travel outbound along a fixed line for orientation and possibly
to find our way back to a reference point or fixed excursion line
should the visibility drop suddenly. We also practiced the ubiquitous
“shutdown drills,” as well as buddy breathing and buddy
swimming, all with and without masks. It's a little strange spending
bulk time at depth sans dive mask, rather like sitting in a massive
saline eye rinse. But like all else, it gets easier the more you
practice.
S'pose I should give equal time to the local scenery amidst the
work descriptions. The sea was nearly perfect today; gentle swells,
impossibly blue water, and visibility such that you could easily
make out the habitat and local gazebo looking down through the waves
from the boat. As I remembered from the training dives last May,
the reef is alive! We were treated to a terrific display of wildlife
- fish, coral, magnificent sponges, and the biggest Baracuda I had
ever seen! ("Yeah, that's about as big as they come, except when
they get bigger...") If the visibility stays like this, about 60
plus feet, the mission objectives will that much easier.
9:45 PM: One more crew
meeting and some administrative duties, as well as a call home to
reaffirm that this really is work, and then some needed Z's. G'night.
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