Oceans of Opportunity

Category: Mesophotic Exploration

Portable Inflatable Habitats | some context from 2021

In June–July 1964, Ed Link – businessman, inventor, philanthropist – conducted his second Man-in-the-Sea experiment in the Berry Islands (a chain in the Bahamas) with Robert Sténuit and Jon Lindbergh, one of the sons of Charles Lindbergh. Sténuit and Lindbergh stayed in Link’s SPID habitat (Submersible, Portable, Inflatable Dwelling) for 49 hours underwater at a depth of 432 feet (132 m), breathing…

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New Book : Closed Circuit, Open Sourced

During my recent Blogging hiatus, I shifted my time allocated towards writing to bottom out a long overdue book project., and am pleased to share here that ‘Closed Circuit | Open Sourced’  is now published and available on Amazon.com. I’ve been diving closed circuit rebreathers for almost 20 years, having realized the strong potential for…

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DPV Toolbox Finally Gets Wet

A few folks close in my circles have been asking, even prodding, when I expect to be back in the field exploring and studying the deep. Well, as I’ve come to appreciate over the years, there isn’t much sense going back “just because”. Certainly, we could have been out there annually or more often for…

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New Paper – A Little Fish with a Big Name, in NMEA

2016 was a big year for new publications, as we we’ve taken some time over the last couple of years to write-up the significant body of work that has been evolving. I’m pleased to share another paper, courtesy our collaboration with Anne Krauss from Cobbles Elementary School in Penfield, NY: Paper-NMEACurrent_Derilissus2016 Anne’s students at Cobbles…

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scientific diving – a value add

As my career has evolved, I’ve found myself involved in progressively more challenging environments to work in and under – part of this has been out of personal interest, and part has been out of necessity to take science forward [and deeper]. This pursuit brings out one critical and common thread which needs to be…

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tech tips: think subject illumination, rather than ‘lighting’

As recently as two days ago I was mucking about at the bottom of Narragansett Bay to identify and recover debris that may have posed a problem for a dredging operation. While at it, I made the effort to do some tests with a recently launched underwater LED light. The design was pushed by your…

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tech tips: offboard diluent gas addition for rebreathers

With a growing population of rebreather divers, subsystem level components are in need of being standardized to enable cross-unit compatibility within a dive team. One such area, of critical importance, is cross-compatibility of offboard gas distribution systems. All members of a dive team should be able to share or utilize any other members’ offboard gas…

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and…One More New Paper: standards of practice for Atmospheric Diving for science

Recently published: Lombardi, MR. (2016) Proposed Standards of Practice and Recommendations for Inclusion of Atmospheric Diving System (ADS) End-User Training and Operations within the Scientific Community. In Lobel, LK., & Lombardi, MR. (editors) (2016) Diving for Science 2016: Proceedings of the AAUS 35th Scientific Symposium, September 20-14, 2016, Narragansett, RI. Dauphin Island, AL: American Academy of…

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Another New Paper: variable depth capability for portable inflatable habitats

Recently published in cooperation with colleagues at NYU and URI: Piispanen, RA., Lombardi, MR., and Burleson, W. (2016). Variable Depth Capability for Portable Inflatable Habitats. In Lobel, LK., & Lombardi, MR. (editors) (2016) Diving for Science 2016: Proceedings of the AAUS 35th Scientific Symposium, September 20-14, 2016, Narragansett, RI. Dauphin Island, AL: American Academy of Underwater…

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a Deep & Dark Halloween

Just when you think another Halloween had passed us by with not much more happening other than the  ’round the block loop for trick or treating, and the resulting big bucket of candy to indulge in, we’re reminded of deep and dark thoughts…from the mesophotic zone of course! A student from Cobbles Elementary School shared…

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