11 things we learned from Fabien Cousteau – who lived under water for 31 days

In 2014, Fabien Cousteau and his team embarked on a mission to break the world record for the number of days spent living under water.

They set up temporary quarters on Aquarius, an 81-ton vessel that serves as the world’s only underwater marine laboratory located nine miles off the coast of the Florida Keys and 63 feet beneath the sea.

Then 31 days later, the team emerged back on the shore, breaking the record formerly set by Mr Cousteau’s grandfather – the famous ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau – by a day.

Four years later, Mr Cousteau relives his Mission 31 experience on Reddit’s Ask Me Anything and here are 11 things we learned from the aquanaut.

1. On the common misconceptions about the ocean

2. On the possibility of humans living permanently underwater

3. On underwater diet

4. On the coolest and the hardest things about living underwater

DCS stands for decompression sickness, which is also known as the bends. It occurs in scuba divers or high altitude or aerospace events when dissolved gases (mainly nitrogen) come out of solution in bubbles and get trapped inside the human body, affecting areas including joints, lung, heart, skin and brain.

5. On human garbage in the ocean

6. On filming the underwater experience

7. On noise pollution

8. On spending time in the decompression chambers

9. On the underwater set-up

10. On sleep patterns and underwater sounds

11. On experiencing sunlight after living beneath the ocean for a long period of time