NORTH ATLANTIC

7:00 a.m. — Shortly after I awake we arrive at the Titanic site. While this is my third visit, and second in the past month, it is still an emotional experience for me. I feel it when we pull up in the daytime — and even more at night — looking out at these very dark, deep waters and thinking how terrifying it must have been for those people back in 1912.

It seems to go unnoticed by most everyone on the Keldysh though, as there is still so much work to do.

On a bright note, our support boat, the Sikuk, is on-site and we prepare to transfer personnel. There are more people required for this leg of the expedition than the Keldysh can support, so we have hired a second ship to act as a floating hotel and taxi service to bring these people to the site and put them up at night. Some of these people are desperately needed on board, including my satellite engineer Ken Stiver. I feel a huge confidence boost just having Ken here.

9:00 a.m. — The rest of our crew is shuttled over to the Keldysh in one of the RHIBs. They are very happy to see us and a ship with more bathrooms, food choices and stability than what's available on the Sikuk.

Noon — Spirits on board the Keldysh are growing with the addition of the needed crew and word of successful fiber penetrations into the MIRs. Technical operations are on track for the dive tomorrow.

2:30 p.m. — We send a 45-minute two-way satellite interview with Jim Cameron out to Arizona State University. The feed is well-received by those in attendance there and at the Boys & Girls Clubs across America who receive it as a Webcast. The satellite holds up perfectly throughout the broadcast despite the fact that they were receiving it much farther away and on a much smaller satellite dish than the one that will be used for Discovery's feeds of the show. This is fantastic news.

3:00 p.m. — The afternoon is spent with all of our scientists, archaeologists, biologists and Titanic experts examining footage from the wreck and recording voice-overs for use in taped packages in our show. The television crew is happy to be busily working after many long periods of waiting and downtime.

8:00 p.m. — After dinner, everyone returns to work to complete final preparations for the dive day tomorrow. The boat teams ready their gear, the television team continues recording and screening, the satellite team optimizes its equipment, and Jim and his team go over dive plans. The pressure is very high for tomorrow's dive, but we're excited and optimistic.

Bob Sitrick is vice president of live production for Discovery.

More Leg 2 Expedition Logs: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 |

Also read the entries from Leg 1 of the expedition. |