Global Courant
A Florida professor who spent 100 days underwater at a scuba diving lodge in the Florida Keys resurfaced Friday, seeing the sun for the first time since March 1.
Dr. Joseph Dituri, known as Dr. Deep Sea, set a new record for living underwater for the longest time without depressurization while staying at Jules’ Undersea Lodge, submerged under 30 feet (9.14 meters) of water in a Key Largo lagoon.
“I’ve been exploring for 100 days,” Dituri said. “I am looking for life, the life of the oceans and the life of future generations.”
In this photo taken by the Florida Keys News Bureau, scuba diving explorer and medical researcher Dr. Joseph Dituri is left in the sun on Friday, June 9, 2023, after completing a 100-day underwater mission in the Jules’ Undersea Lodge marine habitat at the bottom of a lagoon in Key Largo, Fla. (Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
Dituri shattered the previous record of 73 days, two hours, and 34 minutes set by two Tennessee professors at the same lodge in 2014. At 74. day, Guinness World Records list Dituri as the record holder on its website.
Dituri spent the nearly 3 months researching how the human body and mind respond to prolonged exposure to extreme pressure and an isolated environment and is designed to help ocean explorers and astronauts on future long-term missions.
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“It was never about the record,” Dituri said. “It was about increasing human tolerance for the underwater world and for an isolated, confined, extreme environment.”
In this photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, diving explorer and medical researcher Dr. Joseph Dituri’s chief physician, Dr. Sarah Spelsberg, Friday, June 9, 2023, after living 100 days in the marine habitat of Jules’ Undersea Lodge at the bottom of a lagoon in Key Largo, Fla. (Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
The University of South Florida educator, who has a doctorate in biomedical engineering and is a retired U.S. Navy officer, conducted daily experiments and measurements to check how his body responded to the increase in pressure over time.
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He also met several thousand students online from 12 countries, taught a USF course, and welcomed more than 60 visitors to the habitat.
“The most satisfying thing about this is interacting with nearly 5,000 students and seeing them care about the preservation, protection and rejuvenation of our marine environment,” Dituri said.
In this photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, diving explorer and medical researcher Dr. Joseph Dituri plans to leave the Jules’ Undersea Lodge marine habitat on Friday, June 9, 2023, after living in the habitat for 100 days at the bottom of a Key Largo, Florida, lagoon. (Mike Zimmer/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
In this photo provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, diving explorer and medical researcher Dr. Joseph Dituri, right, examined by Dr. Sarah Spelsberg, left, Friday, June 9, 2023, after living 100 days in the Jules’ Undersea Lodge marine habitat at the bottom of a lagoon in Key Largo, Fla. (Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
Dituri documented part of his daily life underwater on Instagram.
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He plans to present findings from Project Neptune 100 at the World Extreme Medicine Conference in Scotland in November.
Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a writer on Fox News Digital’s breaking news team. You can reach her on Twitter at @s_rumpfwhiteten.
