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Not Quite A League - Page 2 continued
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Island Seafood on Gwynn's Island is providing its
dock-BAYLAB is submerged about 600 feet away-as well as power, parking space and telephone service. The College of William and Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences
(VIMS) provided space for Wells and company to collect materials and build
BAYLAB. In several trailers in the back of the VIMS boatyard on the York River, Wells, Depping and Devereux accumulated anything that might be useful to their purpose, including a decompression chamber and a diver-training tank. Because all
BAYLAB electronics are powered by batteries, Wells studied power consumption of fans and the efficiency of various colors of light emitting diodes
(LEDs) while crammed into a small crowded corner in the back of one of the trailers. Depping and Devereux were the main scavengers for the project, finding ways to adapt and use discarded objects for their needs, even locating low-energy fans at a flea market for $2 apiece, instead of paying the $35 catalog price. "I've always enjoyed science and photography and I've been a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy," says
Depping. "The project has taken a lot of time but not a lot of money." Wells estimates the cost at between $15,000 and
$20,000. |
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| After being towed from the VIMS boatyard to Gwynn's Island,
BAYLAB was submerged during the first week of
October. Now that it's been on the Bay bottom awhile, BAYLAB-once painted a glossy white-is starting to blend with its surroundings, becoming home to barnacles, algae and sea squirts. To enter the 13-foot-long cylinder, Wells and Depping remove their air tanks and put them through the hatch first, squeezing through after them. Depping calls this the spookiest part, "when you first get in and stand up." The entrance area has a baffle with water about 18 inches deep, which the aquanauts step over. The baffle prevents flooding of the chamber. The entrance area also contains a portable toilet, a through-hull tube, a shower and an equipment storage area. A humidity-tight transparent Plexiglas door, which is hinged on one side and surrounded by rubber gasket and magnetic stripping, separates the entrance area from the work
area. In the work area, there are all the comforts of home, more or less: two bunks, two chairs, a work surface and wall-mounted instrument racks. Wells knows fatigue is a main factor in this kind of work, so he made the bunks full length even though they're narrow. The aquanauts can't stand up
straight-BAYLAB is only 5 feet 6 inches in diameter-but there are ways for them to stretch their legs, move around and do exercises. The lab's indoor temperature is only several degrees above the water temperature outside. "We wear long johns and sweat suits down there," Wells says. "The first two dives were one-sweat-suit dives. As it gets colder we'll layer more sweat suits." "In the work area, it's dry but it's a sterile environment, all white and aluminum," Depping says. "We're getting fresh air from the tanks while we're down there, so there are no smells. We can't cook, so everything we eat is cold from the can. About the only thing you can smell is from the bottle of liquid smoke I put on my tuna fish." Depping also takes along M&M's for his chocolate supply. "It sure isn't like eating in a
restaurant". Wells's favorite canned food while in BAYLAB is refried beans with hot sauce.
"It's been noted that aquanauts seem to lose their sense of smell but we're not sure why," Wells says. "When you have a carbonated beverage down there, it has no fizz. The pressure in the chamber overcomes the pressure in the bottle. |
| The best calculator won't work down there because it's airtight. All the keys go down at once. The cheapest one works the best in that environment. You also have to be careful about taking other things down. The capacitors in some cameras will collapse. The blue boxes we use to carry things below, called transfer pots, have valves that have to be released to be able to open them down there. It would be impossible to open them without that
valve." |
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| Wells's experience with low-energy life support systems and his attention to details enables
BAYLAB to function as a self-contained undersea habitat for three to four days before
re-supply becomes necessary. Near the viewing window, the flow meters regulate air, oxygen and nitrogen-oxygen. The chamber has sensors with alarms for carbon dioxide, oxygen and carbon monoxide. Once a day, the aquanauts must change the chemicals that absorb moisture and carbon dioxide. The chemical supply is kept in three-liter soda bottles under the bunks. Recycled, of
course." The worst thing that could happen would be a fire, and we're counteracting the possibility of that by breathing only 16 to 18 percent oxygen," Wells says. "Air is normally 21 percent oxygen and the flammability decreases substantially at the lower levels. I feel safer down there than driving on I-64." As the tide changes, the amount of water above the chamber will change, affecting the pressure on the chamber. The aquanauts have to add
nitrox, a combination of nitrogen and oxygen-on the incoming tide and lessen it on the outgoing tide, and the hinged door allows the gas to "burp" out as necessary. The nitrox supply is also stored under the bunks. "When you're down there, you get used to hearing the gas bubble out," Depping says. "Since there's so little sensory stimulation down there, when I don't hear the bubbling, I wonder why
not." Continued
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