Transit to Texas

Were now at sea down near the eastern coast of Florida, my home state. It has taken us four days to get this far because our boat can't go all that fast, about 11 knots (12 miles per hour) at top speed.  We typically travel at about 8.5 knots (a little over 9 miles per hour). That's a fast speed for a runner, but not so fast for a ship.

As we are traveling to the Gulf of Mexico, we are checking out all the systems on our boat to make sure we are ready to dive in the Flower Gardens. Because we are under water, there is no TV, telephone or any other type of routine communication like we all take for granted at home. We talk to Carolyn Chouest, our support ship, using an underwater telephone, but the sound is poor and sometimes difficult to understand.  Twice a day (unless the seas are rough), we come up to the surface to exchange messages and email with Carolyn Chouest. That way we can hear from our headquarters and our families.

As we were passing around Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, we experienced hurricane force winds that pushed the seas up to 30 feet high! It's a good thing Carolyn is built as sturdy as she is, and it's a good thing we are in a submarine that can drive below those huge waves. My crew up on Carolyn was pretty sea sick, but we were comfortable down on Submarine NR-1.