Oceans of Opportunity

Author: oceanopportunity

Can we flush our negligence, or has Narragansett Bay really just gone to $#!T?

Bristol. East Providence. Aquapalooza. Three sewage-related closures in one season remind us that Narragansett Bay can absorb a great deal—but our negligence just won’t go down the drain. I spend a good amount of my working days on—and primarily beneath—Narragansett Bay. Down there, the world is reduced to a few honest things: water, muddy blackness,…

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The Sakonnet and the Sturgeon

On June 9th, 2026 I sat through the painful 4 hour hearing for the Coastal Resource Management Council’s (CRMC) assent of SouthCoast Wind’s application to run high voltage export cables up through the Sakonnet River. I very infrequently, if ever, attend these types of public hearings – not for lack of interest, rather that I’m…

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Overpopulation Nation. Do we need a Sea Station?

This is a refreshed op-ed from its original publication in 2017; to expand on context related to modern and future subsea habitation as we reflect on the historical significance of the Sealab Program on its 60th anniversary. Call it one of those quirky fateful twists – as I started up my truck this morning [January…

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Portable Inflatable Habitats | some context from 2024

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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Back to Basics – Understanding Why We Do Not have Big Permanent Underwater Habitats Today

Given my own recent activity in the field of undersea habitation, I’ve received numerous inquiries as to my thoughts on permanent undersea stations, so have taken some time to summarize here. My perspective is a bit cynical, though comes from having developed, operated, and generated intellectual property behind our own habitat technology, while making a…

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Happy Birthday Blog to Me

For those following my various blogs and bramblings, yes, I am still very much on a Blog hiatus, though felt compelled to make a few short key strokes today…seeing as it’s my birthday and I do love to write, I may as well write. As many of my days go, it was spent on on…

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Signing off…for now

To my loyal Blog readers and followers, I’m taking a break from Blogging… For this next stretch, I am committing my time allocated to writing to completing a long overdue technical manuscript, and then following that with a new book project. I have no idea how long this will keep me offline, but believe it…

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Out of Sight, Out of Mind

They say “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, and that may well be the case for pickers galore, or even for we subaquatic pickers – wreck hunters, salvors, and history nerds. But it’s not all fun and games… In some cases, underwater wreckage is actually a watery grave, and must be treated with the…

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the bed & breakfast, or the bivy

Underwater living… it’s perhaps the start of the lineage of work that many of us have embarked upon, and still remains a vision for the future. “Why?” one might ask… While the Atlantean dreamscape painted of a life beneath the waves of some utopian tropical paradise flirts with the outskirts of fantasy, the practical side…

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When the surface is not an option…

What an emotionally exhausting week for all in the dive community, as we, with the rest of the world, awaited the rescue of the 12 boys and their coach from the flooded Thai Tham Luang cave system. First things first – a HUGE applause from the entire world is owed to all of the divers…

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