Ransom Riggs
One Man’s Quest to Colonize the Sea
by Ransom Riggs - March 11, 2010 - 10:44 AM

Another fascinating short documentary from motherboard.tv, The Aquatic Life of Dennis Chamberland takes us to a place I’ve blogged about here before, Jules’ Undersea Lodge, a “hotel” 50 feet below the surface of a lagoon in Key Largo, Florida, where an “aquanaut” named Dennis Chamberland is plotting the human colonization of the world’s oceans:

To move humans to an underwater “Aquatica,” as he calls the habitable regions of the ocean, he launched the Atlantica Expeditions, which are attempting to build the first underwater settlement for permanent human colonization. This isn’t a lark or a toe-dip: with the premise that nearly three quarters of our planet’s largest biome have long remained invisible – and are increasingly endangered – the Atlantica project seeks

“a human colony whose primary purpose it is to monitor and protect this most essential of all the earth’s biomes. Soon, beneath the sea, families will live and work. Children will go to school. A new generation of children will be born there – the first citizens of a new ocean civilization whose most important purpose will be to continuously monitor and protect the global ocean environment.”

Watch the film and tell us what you think: is this a cool idea, or is Dennis Chamberland just a guy who never got over Sea Hunt?

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Comments (14)

  1. Who else is thinking about Rapture from the game Bioshock?

    posted by tkrausse on 3-11-2010 at 11:23 am

  2. Well – I guess you could say I never got over Sea Hunt. But then where do we get our inspiration that ultimately energizes life and tomorrow? Hope you enjoyed it! Dennis Chamberland

    posted by Dennis Chamberland on 3-11-2010 at 12:43 pm

  3. Do you mean SeaQuest and not Sea Hunt? Never heard of Sea Hunt…However speaking of SeaQuest, I just bought the first season of it on DVD and lemme tell ‘ya, it’s a walk down nostalgia lane.

    posted by Dutch on 3-11-2010 at 1:14 pm

  4. Dennis, please tell me you’re commenting from somewhere beneath the waves!

    posted by Ransom Riggs on 3-11-2010 at 1:32 pm

  5. “Who else is thinking about Rapture from the game Bioshock?”

    You freaking beat me to it!

    posted by Steve on 3-11-2010 at 1:49 pm

  6. I want to go to there.

    posted by Amy on 3-11-2010 at 2:09 pm

  7. How’s their research into plasmids going?

    posted by Admiral Byrd on 3-11-2010 at 2:12 pm

  8. I got new computer a couple of months ago (the old one was over 5yrs old) and am about 3/4 of the way through BioShock – Wow what a ride!

    posted by 'Da guy on 3-11-2010 at 2:17 pm

  9. Watching it I’m curious about hurricanes. Things get pretty wicked under the sea during a hurricane or am I wrong?

    Seems pretty viable to me..at some point.

    Be pretty sweet to slip out the door, do a little spear fishing, come home and chill.

    posted by Dan Whipkey on 3-11-2010 at 2:21 pm

  10. Would you kindly????

    Move to my undersea utopia!

    posted by hockey zombie on 3-11-2010 at 2:50 pm

  11. Oh man. Bioshock is the first thing that came to my mind. Finished the first and am almost done with Bioshock 2. Rapture is a creepy place. Very cool. That’s crazy that there is a real life Andrew Ryan out there plotting to build an underwater city. Science fiction comes to life. And that, my friends, is perhaps the nerdiest comment I’ve ever posted and I apologize for it.

    posted by Eric on 3-11-2010 at 3:16 pm

  12. I too thought BioShock! I would love to go if I wasn’t claustrophobic.

    posted by Christina on 3-11-2010 at 4:22 pm

  13. Mr. Chamberland, if you would like to rescue a marine biologist from a landlocked life, please put me on your team! I love his attitude. “I have nothing else to do until I die except this project” Brilliant! The idea is an intriguing one although I do have concerns. The hurricane issue is actually a fairly simple one to deal with compared to other aspects of this project. My main worry is that while the intentions are good, the communities will soon give way to the same polluting self absorbed nature of communities on land. Also, the location of these communities is an issue. There were plenty of lovely reef shots in the video, but you can’t build on a reef! (well you can but what a horrible thing to do) His mission really is wonderful though. I’d like to see great things come from this. Maybe in the form of a conservation school/university?

    posted by Nykkya on 3-11-2010 at 6:39 pm

  14. No, Mr. Riggs I am communicating from my landlocked desk (sighhhh…..) One day soon though. And wow can you tell you’re well down the road when no one has heard of Mike Nelson? And hey, I never heard of BioShock – so we’re even! And thank you Nykkya on your comments – I very much appreciate them and have considered those angles. Please feel free to write me to discuss this at (explorer /at/ underseacolony.com). And if anyone wishes to read about this in exhausting detail, checkout my book about it all on the underseacolony.com website. And of course thank you Mr. Riggs for the post!

    posted by Dennis Chamberland on 3-12-2010 at 7:38 am

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