March 3rd, 2007
The team came back with the test results from Fahets, they were all green the Age is safe.
I returned without the Maintainer suit, despite it being one of the slimmer models of suits the Maintainers had I still find it rather restrictive.
I spent the morning down in the basin studying the various plant life and making notes for my ongoing flora and fauna classification project. The pod plants seem to be a large fruit of some sort. The centers are a similar structure to tomatoes but they have a very sweet scent to them. I harvested a collection of them at several stages of growth to run some tests on and see if they are edible.
It is very peaceful here, the sound of the waterfall and the birds, the occasional buzzing of insects. I did spy what appeared to be a beetle of some sort flitting around the rocks and settling on the trees. I am hoping I can catch one for further study.
I brought in a ladder with me to get up to the second level that surrounds the basin. It is an enclosed area with walls of rock but from what I can glimpse the Age expands out further through a forest like area. Perhaps I can see about cutting through the rock and opening a channel to this secondary area at some point.
In the mean time I have set myself to mapping the initial area. Sophie voiced an idea of setting a camera up on a helium balloon and letting it go to see if we can capture some images of the surrounding area. Evidently she had read an article about some school children doing something similar to take photos of Earth from the edge of space with great results.
