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Break the Record, US Professor Lives 100 Days Underwater. PHOTO/Reuters
FLORIDA – A university professor who spent 100 days live underwater at the Florida Keys dive lodge, United States of America (US) resurfaced on Friday (9/6/2023). He raised his face to the sun for the first time since March 1.
Joseph Dituri set a new record for longest time living underwater without depressurizing while staying at Jules’ Undersea Lodge. It submerged under 30 feet (9.14 meters) in the Key Largo lagoon.
The dive explorer and medical researcher broke the previous record of 73 days, two hours and 34 minutes set by two Tennessee professors at the same cottage in 2014.
“It was never about records,” said Dituri. “It was about expanding human tolerance for the underwater world and for isolated, confined and extreme environments,” he continued, as quoted by AP.
Dituri, who is also known by the moniker “Dr. Deep Sea,” is a University of South Florida educator who holds a doctorate in biomedical engineering and is a retired US Navy officer.
Guinness World Records listed Dituri as the record holder on its website after 74 days underwater last month. The Marine Resources Development Foundation, which owns the lodge, will ask Guinness to certify the 100-day Dituri mark, according to foundation head Ian Koblick.
The Dituri effort, dubbed the Neptune 100 Project, is being run by the foundation. Unlike a submarine, which uses technology to keep the pressure inside nearly equal to that on the surface, the interior of the hut is set to match the higher pressures found underwater.
The project aims to learn more about how the human body and mind respond to extended exposure to extreme pressures and isolated environments and is designed to benefit ocean researchers and astronauts on long-range missions in the future.
