Two Weeks Under the Sea

so many today asked me if I miss like running around and a field or something I was like no I'm running around on the bottom of the ocean for the last two weeks I've been living underwater as part of mission 31 I was a mission scientist you're ready for this Aquarius is an underwater habitat it is on the seafloor at 63 feet 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 underwater there's enough 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 square feet and as you can see right outside window there's the ocean floor about 63 feet down there's 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 feet 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 aqua not as a saturated diver because we are living underwater for so long we can die for up to nine hours a day for our two weeks underwater we accomplished what we could have done in about two 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 concrete where Aquarius is at and so we took the approach of looking at tiny micro climates such as inside a barrel sponge or inside the mouth of a tiny coral polyp 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 chinstrap off 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 Aquarius habitat they are able to use their their Anatomy to create this sound wave that travels through the water which is their way of stunning prey or communicating with each other there was a moment where I crept towards her and was actually able to just hang out with Sylvia 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 alright enough 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 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 new port every night it was awesome alright we have permission secure your exhaust valves all right commence blowdown here we go it was very regimented and okay put your fins on get your mask on get in the water I didn't get to reflect on it until we were hanging on to 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 feet I didn't want it to and because it was so cool and it was probably one of the most unique things I'm ever going to do

Channel: NOVA PBS Official

Views: 2,879,083

Keywords: NOVA, Public Broadcasting Service (TV Network), science, Aquanaut (Profession), Oceanography (Field Of Study), marine organisms, marine life

Id: gx7V6c_2Jyo

Length: 4min 33sec (273 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 27 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/Cahnis]

At 2:12, that fish is just amazed by the sheer amount of science being done.

[u/Trifolblerone]

This is seriously how far we only got with an aqualab? Someone needs to step up their game and fund more of this.

[u/SaxonsLaugh]

Looks amazing! I wonder why there aren't more of these considering how much faster they are able to do research and gather data.

[u/Frank4010]

Wish they would show how they shower or clean and where is the toilet

[u/cross-joint-lover]

No thanks, I read Michael Crichton's Sphere...

[u/[deleted]]

It's a Sea Lab!

[u/[deleted]]

IS there a full length doc for this?

[u/Frost_Byte_]

I'm upset that I've not seen a Sealab 2021 joke yet.

[u/mightyjake]

Science wise it is very cool. As far as sat-diving goes, that's really unimpressive. 100m is considered pretty standard for oil and gas divers. 63 ft (19 m) is almost too shallow. They just swam down. They didn't need to go into a saturation chamber or dive bell at all. They just swam at a more leisurely pace.

And for oil and gas, the divers do hard labour for 6 hours a day for 4 weeks at that depth. They live in a similarly sized pressurized tin can (depending on the vessel), but the depth is simulated in sat on the boat.