Undersea Lodge Is 30 Feet Below Ocean Surface : Hotel Guests Can Look Fish in the Eye

Leave your fancy clothes at home and don’t bring a hair dryer if you’re checking in at Jules’ Undersea Lodge.

This small hotel, named after author Jules Verne, is hidden from view in the last frontier on Earth: inner space. It is 30 feet under water in a picturesque natural lagoon.

“Every minute was better than the last,” Steve Tyler, lead vocalist with Aerosmith, said of his visit. “It was like being a kid again.”

The underwater habitat was developed by a scientist, Ian Koblick, in 1971. It was used as a sea lab off Puerto Rico until 1974, then put in storage off Ft. Lauderdale.

A decade later, it was brought to Key Largo, where Neil Monney, former director of ocean engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy, converted it to a hotel.

“We built this to change the perception of the public,” said Monney, 48. “This is the first time they can live under water. It’s akin to living in space. It’s also the only underwater hotel in the world.”

Nearly 1,000 guests--about 60% of them divers--have stayed at the lodge since it opened 2 years ago.

Rates Start at $99

The daily rate ranges from $99 to $295 per person, depending on the size of the group and the program selected. A “mini-adventure day visit” costs $50 a person. Those who spend a full day at the hotel receive an aquanaut’s certificate.

The steel lodge is 50 feet long and 20 feet wide. There are two 8-by-10-foot bedroom suites on one side and an 8-by-20-foot suite that serves as an entertainment center, living room and galley on the other.

Separating the two chambers is a 10-by-20 foot “dive-port” room with a “moon pool” entrance, showers and bathroom facilities.

The suites are carpeted, furnished and equipped with indirect lighting, a stocked refrigerator, sink, videocassette recorder and stereo with a library of audio and videotapes. Frozen meals are prepared in a microwave oven in the galley.

The two bedrooms have double lower beds and single upper berths. The living room can sleep two. Guests pass between rooms through large, circular hatches.

The Koblick Marine Center includes the hotel and Marine Resources Development Foundation, a nonprofit training and research facility for scientists and students.

Guests are greeted by Pam Thorsell. “Most people are so excited about going down. They don’t have a lot of questions, but non-divers are sometimes nervous,” she said. “They end up having a great time.”

Nondivers Get Training

Uncertified scuba divers are given a short course to prepare them for the watery descent to their rooms and exploratory diving in the lagoon.

Instead of bellhops, Jules’ Undersea Lodge has “merpersons,” experienced divers who accompany guests to their suites, explain the amenities and remain on call to answer questions or run errands. The merpersons, such as 20-year-old Ray Whitney, also conduct orientation sessions for guests.

Whitney explains the gauges and equipment that monitor and supply fresh air, water, power and communications to the lodge. There are also independent backup systems inside the habitat, and the lodge contains a 6-hour supply of air at all times.

Guests are linked to the control post and outside world by an intercom in each room, sound-powered telephone, marine radio and conventional telephone. A watch officer is always on duty at the control center near the dock at the lagoon’s edge, and closed-circuit television monitors the dive-port room.

“This way, we can see people going in and out,” Whitney said. “Guests must check in with the watch officer whenever they go out for a dive.”

Checking in Under Water

Following orientation, guests put on bathing suits and take a small boat to a platform stationed over the lodge. A diving mask and fins are the only required equipment.

“All they need are toiletries, shorts, T-shirts and pajamas for those who wear them,” Whitney said. “No hair dryers, and no alcoholic beverages--they don’t mix with diving.”

Guests need not bring tobacco, either. “There’s two-thirds more oxygen in the habitat than on the surface,” Monney said, so, “cigarettes would burn too fast and smoking puts toxic gases into the atmosphere.”

Luggage is wrapped in plastic bags and placed in water-tight “pelican cases” to be taken to the suites.

Guided by Whitney, each guest dons a small harness equipped with a “pony bottle” of air in case of an emergency. Hookah lines--tethered air hoses with attached mouth regulators--are used for the 30-foot descent to the lodge.

Once in the water, guests climb down a rope to the bottom and under the lodge, then come up in the “moon pool,” a 5-by-7-foot opening in the dive-port room.

There, they remove masks, fins and hookah lines, shower with fresh water and change into dry clothing.

Fish Peek into Rooms

The accommodations are roomy and comfortable, and there is little sensation of being under the sea. A 42-inch picture window in each room provides a panoramic view of the many varieties of fish and sea life in the lagoon.

As guests settle in, they can watch a parade of inquisitive fish--snapper, yellowtail, grouper, grunt and an occasional manatee--that peer into the windows.

“That’s Confucius,” Whitney said, pointing out a 10-to-15 pound grouper with bright green eyes. “He’s always hanging around.”

There’s no cocktail lounge or bar, but if Chris Olstad drops by, guests are treated to an added adventure. Olstad, a biologist and underwater technologist at the foundation, takes visitors on exploratory dives through an area the size of a football field. With slate and underwater pencil, he identifies soft corals, sponges, tunicates, anemones and other live forms in the lagoon.

A night dive offers the sight of lobsters and crabs crawling on the bottom.

Guests may prepare frozen food in a microwave, or restaurant meals are but a phone call away.

“The most difficult (delivery) is a pizza,” Whitney said. “I have to wrap it in plastic bags to keep it watertight. Then I have to sit on it to take it down to the hotel, and I have to be careful not to tilt it and mess up the pizza.”