Underwater chamber

[minimalistdiver]

I am just dreaming here, but I am fascinated by these underwater hotel rooms and restaurants and such that I have seen photos and conceptual graphics of. I start to wonder, has anybody ever made one of their own? Yes I know it would cost a LOT. But wouldn't it be interesting to make your own living environment and lower it down to 100' in the water in a lake or lagoon or something? I imagine it would have to be anchored down quite a bit to keep tides and currents from moving it around if it were in the ocean. And It would have to be made extremely heavy to counteract the boyancy of the air in the structure. And is the clean air supply and scrubbing to deal with.

I am referring to a hard permanent structure, not the big plastic bags that some folks strap down and fill full of air. I mean a real room with 9 inch thick aquarium windows ect...

It could either be accessed by diving to it, or a waterproof tunnel from shore.

I have two questions:

1. Has a private individual ever made anything like this? Not a hotel or restaurant, but more like an enthusiast or research group.

2. What kind or precautions are there as far as Nitrogen blood levels, and decompression? Would the same time limits apply for recteational diving? If so a person couldn't spend more than a few minutes in the chamber.

 

[Thalassamania]

Since the pressure inside and out (unless you have a deco-dorm like some do) is the same you can often avoid heavy duty stuff except in the deco-dorm area. Building it yourself is not really that big a deal, I've been involved in three such efforts, all of which worked out fine. Now, here's the trick: if you want to deploy it with the hatch below 20 feet you will need to decompress after saturation and that is not straight-forward. If you want to deploy it with the hatch below ab out 45 feet you will have to consider ox-tox and go to an alternate breathing mixture. Less problems with building than with surviving the use.