Su Jing never thought she could drive a submersible and dive into the southwest Indian Ocean.
Having been recruited for the deep-sea manned submersible Shenhai Yongshi (deep-sea warrior), she has now finished two scientific expeditions, with the deepest dive among her 13 in the last two years coming in at 2,800 meters.
"The deep sea is definitely not the way I imagined. It's completely dark beyond 200 meters," said Su, a crew member of the manned submersible, which recently finished an expedition in the Indian Ocean and returned to Sanya in Hainan province on March 10.
The mission returned a rich harvest of samples, including hydrothermal fluid, sulfide, bedrock, and hydrothermal microorganisms.
It also conducted deep field surveys of five hydrothermal zones and captured high-definition videos of seafloor hydrothermal activity.
On the mission, Su was the side pilot in charge of maintaining communication with the surface and maintaining life-support facilities.
After diving the submersible encountered a large stretch of black-smoke, which was dangerous because it blocked the driver's vision and caused the temperature to rise. Despite this Su carried out her duties successfully and collected the targeted samples.
She said the submersible chamber can allow only three people to perform underwater operations simultaneously, two aquanauts and one scientist, with total darkness in the deep sea along with high temperatures posing demanding tests for divers' abilities and skills.
In 2016 Su attended a lecture by the Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering of Chinese Academy of Sciences, which brought her to her aquanaut career.
Now she is engaged in a juggling act as both an aquanaut and associate professor at the College of Computer Science and Technology in Hainan Tropical Ocean University.
Shenhai Yongshi is scheduled to set off for another expedition in June and Su will carry out the mission.
Su said she hopes to integrate the oceanic expeditions into her teaching in the future and teach students more about submarine science.
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