KEY LARGO, Fla. — A college professor broke the record for longest life underwater without depressurization this weekend at a scuba diving lodge in the Florida Keys.
Joseph Dituri’s 74th day living at Jules’ Undersea Lodge, located at the bottom of a 30-foot-deep lagoon in Key Largo, wasn’t much different from his previous days there since he went under on March 1 .
Dituri, who is also nicknamed “Dr. Deep Sea,” he ate a protein-rich meal of eggs and salmon prepared in a microwave, worked out with resistance bands, did his daily push-ups, and took a one-hour nap. Unlike a underwater, the lodge does not use technology to adjust to increased underwater pressure.
The previous record of 73 days, two hours and 34 minutes was set by two Tennessee teachers — Bruce Cantrell and Jessica Fain — at the same location in 2014.
But Dituri isn’t just settling for the record and resurfacing — he plans to stay at the lodge until June 9, when he reaches 100 days and completes an underwater mission called Project Neptune 100.
The mission combines medical and ocean research along with educational outreach and was organized by the Marine Resources Development Foundation, which owns the habitat.
“The record is a small blow and I really appreciate it,” said Dituri, a University of South Florida educator who has a doctorate in biomedical engineering and is a retired U.S. Navy officer. “I’m honored to have it, but we still have more science to do.”
His research includes daily experiments in physiology to monitor how the human body responds to long-term exposure to extreme pressure.
“The idea here is to populate the world’s oceans, take care of them by living in them and treating them really well,” Dituri said.
The outreach part of Dituri’s mission includes conducting online classes and broadcasting interviews from his undersea digital studio. In the past 74 days, he has reached more than 2,500 students through online marine science classes and more with his regular biomedical engineering courses at the University of South Florida.
Although he says he loves living under the ocean, there is one thing he really misses.
“The thing I miss most about being on the surface is literally the sun,” Dituri said. “The sun has been an important factor in my life: I usually go to the gym at five and then I go back to watch the sunrise.”
