The last few days have been such a blur! Everyday follows the same routine but there is always something new going on. It was nice to have a day off on Friday. I got some much needed sleep and went to the Diving History Museum. Even though I've been to the florida Keys many times, I've never gotten the chance to go through the museum. It was really neat! There were a lot of old diving helmets and gear that really showed the evolution of manned-underwater exploration. Going to the museum made me really want to try out one of the older styled helmets, or at least one of the ones that the Aquanauts use.
This past Saturday was definitely one of the best moments of Mission 31 field work for me so far. It was the day that I finally got to go inside of Aquarius! After diving around the habitat for the past two weeks, I was very excited to get the chance to actually go inside the world's only undersea lab. Now, this was actually my second time inside of Aquarius. During Mission Aquarius in Summer 2012, I visited Mark and Sylvia Earle inside the habitat, but the experience was so new and overwhelming that I didn't really get to soak everything in. This time was different. I was ready for the strange sensation of being able to sit around a kitchen table underwater and have a conversation with people while fish swim by. However, it was so agonizing to wait on the boat all day until 2pm to finally be able to get into the water. In order to maximize our time inside Aquarius, Amanda and I didn't dive before our official "splash-down" time. But It was worth the wait. Promptly at 2:10pm, Amanda and I dove down to the habitat and surfaced up into the wet porch to be welcomed by Otter, one of the technicians saturating along with the other Aquanauts. We very quickly showered to rinse off salt water while looking out a view port and watching our favorite spotted eagle rays swim by, had a safety briefing, and stepped into the rest of the habitat. The Aquanauts had a bowl of m&ms waiting for us on the table when we entered the main lock of Aquarius. The whole reason Amanda and I were in Aquarius was to do a live outreach event with the Boston Museum of Science. We were both pretty nervous about the public speaking part of our Aquarius visit, and planned ahead to kick each other under the table whenever we started talking to fast; but the event went pretty well! I talked about my research on the coral gastrovascular system using the Unisense Underwater Meter System and Oxygen Microsensors and Amanda talked about her zooplankton research. Aquanaut, Grace Young, also joined us at the table and was a great addition to the event, as she could answer the "living underwater" questions better than we could. Our half hour of talking with the museum flew by with guest appearances through the view port by the other members of the surface team and Aquanaut Liz Magee. You can watch the event here. Since we didn't dive before our Aquarius Dive, we had a little extra time after hanging up with the Museum and Amanda and I were able to call our parents from 50ft underwater. They were tickled! Humorously, my entire Skype call with my dad is recorded at the end of the outreach event video linked earlier... Oops. I'm definitely a little bit embarrassed about that, but my dad's the coolest, so oh well. We also got to talk more with the Aquanauts before we had to return to the surface. Fabien Cousteau was very impressed with how we work with the micro-sensors in the coral, he said it was like we were performing brain surgery on corals. I loved being able to just hang out with everybody underwater. It sounded like Fabien and crew aren't ready for the mission to end in just a couple more days. Fabien talked about needing to stay longer to get all of the shots for the documentary filmed, but I'm sure that the awesome film crew will get it all done in time. Amanda and I headed out of the main lock of the habitat around 3:15 and then just took our time in the wet porch because Liz had just returned from a dive. We had a great time finally being able to talk with her underwater. Normally, it's a one-sided conversation as she tries to talk to us through her helmet and all we hear is a high-pitched murmur. Eventually, we returned to the surface, but we took our sweet time on the way up and really just tried to soak it all in before getting back on the boat.
I had a great time catching up with Fabien underwater on Saturday, and then today, I got to meet his sister, Celine Cousteau. Before the boat left in the morning, I showed off the micro sensors to her and Jim Toomey. After a great day of diving and the last Museum of Science outreach event with francis and Brian in the habitat, the NU surface team took most (if not all) of the M31 surface support team and Celine and Jim (and Wyland and Holt Mcalllany) out to dinner. I sat next to Celine and really enjoyed hearing all about her different experiences. She took a slightly different path from her brother and does filming and documentaries all over the world on a variety of subjects, not just ocean related. One of her current projects that she is very excited about is based out of the Amazon. Celine is aspiring to tell the indigenous Amazon people's story to a western audience. She said that the people want their story told their own way, even though sometimes they don't know how they really feel about certain things. For example, these people really need modern medicine to keep them and their culture alive, but they also believe that the new medicine is making them sick. The whole thing is a sort of catch 22 of beliefs. You can't tell someone what to believe in. And it is difficult, sometimes, to share other's beliefs when you don't fully understand them or believe them yourself. The indigenous people's beliefs are so different from ours, so Celine has quite the challenge ahead of her to be able to truthfully tell these people's story. I am really looking forward to seeing what comes out of her work in the Amazon. To bring this back to a science perspective, we, as scientists, need to share our experiences, stories, data, and ideas with the general public in order to be heard and better understood. If we are not reaching out to others, who will care to protect and preserve our study subjects? The indigenous people want to preserve their culture, I want to protect coral reefs. They believe in their way of life, I believe that we need healthy oceans. At dinner, we also talked about the importance of science communication and the need for scientists to work cooperatively with scientific journalists (like our embedded teen reported, Morgan Helmuth) or to take an interest in sharing their research themselves. I am slowly starting to see a shift in the science community to approval of social media use to share current research with the public. Which, is great, I just hope that it can start shifting a little faster. Fabien Cousteau and Mission 31 has been an awesome experience in science communication. The team has really rocked social media with great short clips about the cool aspects of living underwater, science tweets, and continuous blogging. I am very excited to be apart of such a cool mission, and I hope that I will get the chance to return to Aquarius again in the future.
Ok, I'm done with my ramblings for the night,
Best Fishes,
Sara
Ok, I'm done with my ramblings for the night,
Best Fishes,
Sara