Kind: captions
Language: en
somebody today asked me if I miss like
running around in a field or something I
was like no I'm running around on the
bottom of the ocean this
is for the last two weeks I've been
living underwater as part of mission 31
I was a mission
scientist you're here
here welcome to your new home thank you
to see you you ready for
this Aquarius is an underwater habitat
it is on the sea floor at 63 ft and it
houses up to six people at a time so
that you can conduct underwater research
it's a
one-of-a-kind space underwat there's no
there's no other Marine Lab underwater
in the world the habitat is small it's
cozy it's about the size of a school bus
400 squ ft and as you can see right
outside the window there's the ocean
floor about 63 ft down there's some fish
swimming
around normally when I'm a surface diver
I'm always worried about my bottom time
when you're diving to about 60 ft you
have about 60 Minutes of bottom time
without risking the bends or
decompression sickness and that's not
very much if you're setting up
experiments and trying to do science but
as an aquanut as a saturated diver
because we are living underwater for so
long we we can dive for up to 9 hours a
day for our 2 weeks underwater we
accomplished what we could have done in
about 2 years from the
surface we came with five different
science goals overall looking at global
climate change and how it might affect a
coral reef such as con Reef where
Aquarius is is at and so we um took the
approach of looking at tiny micro
climates such as inside ins a barrel
sponge or inside the mouth of a tiny
Coral pop to address what might happen
if we have warming of the oceans or if
they're becoming more acidic in the
environment that is surrounding these
organisms change STP
on I think one of the most intense
moments I've had underwater was during
this first dive with the helmet where we
had to flood the mask we had to flood
the helmet by laying down and breaking
the seal at our neck and letting water
in and then we had to stand up and clear
it out and it was an instantaneous thing
it took less than 15 seconds but I was
still pretty nervous about that after
all the diving I've done that is one of
the most scary
moments Sylvia is a goliath grouper she
hangs out around aar's Habitat they are
able to use their their Anatomy to
create this Soundwave that travels
through the water which is their way of
stunning pre
or communicating with each other there
was a moment where I crept towards her
and was actually able to just hang out
with syvia for about 20 minutes and then
right before she left she boomed right
at me and it went right right through my
chest it's like being in a big rock
concert or something and then she just
kind of went away like all right
enough's enough you had 20 minutes with
me it looks like an aquarium from your
viewpoint but you are the aquarium it is
the ocean and fish are looking in at you
and at night especially it starts out as
um tiny Plankton swarming to the light
around the habitat followed by larger
types of planktonic animals eating those
and then small fish and then bigger fish
it was like the food chain unraveling in
front of the viewport every night it was
awesome all right we have permission
secure your exhaust valves all right
commence blow down here we go it was
very regimented and okay put your fins
on get your mask on get in the water
five fast 40 ft 40 ft I didn't get to
reflect on it until we were hanging onto
the line and they were telling us to
come up to the surface one at a time and
we're all hanging on the line and I'm
realizing we spent two weeks underwater
and this is it I got kind of teary eyed
at that moment while hanging on to a
line at 15 ft I didn't want it to end
because it was so cool and it was
probably one of the most unique things
I'm ever going to do