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The life aquatic: Inside the golden age of underwater habitats
EDITOR’S NOTE: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.
The ocean holds many secrets. For the few humans who have lived at its depths, one of those secrets is where all the poop goes.
In years past, crew aboard the Aquarius Reef Base, off Florida, reported leaving the habitat to conduct their business, swimming to an underwater outhouse for privacy. The locals didn’t always get the memo. “Fish, unfortunately, would know why you were out there and they would swarm,” recalled Dawn Kernagis, who lived aboard Aquarius as part of a NASA mission in 2016. Another former resident, Garrett Reisman, described it as “like the dinner bell going off.”
