Scuba-topia
Meet Nemo 33. Designed by Belgian diving expert and civil engineer John Beernaerts as a multi-purpose diving instruction, recreational and film production facility in 2004, Nemo 33 operates the world's deepest indoor pool.
Ideally suited for learning how to dive or for fine-tuning Scuba skills, the 108-foot-deep vessel is filled with 650,000 gallons of specially filtered unchlorinated spring water.
Beernaerts conceived Nemo 33 many years ago, sitting in a Belgian bar, drawing on a napkin. He envisioned a giant indoor diving complex, full of underwater tunnels and chambers. An almost byzantine maze was what Beernaerts sketched, and that's essentially what Nemo 33 is.
There are several simulated underwater caves at the 33-foot depth and numerous underwater windows that allow visitors outside the pool to look in at various depths.
The water is maintained at a temperature that mimics deep-sea diving in the Caribbean, though there are no sharks, stingrays or octopi in Nemo to alarm beginning divers. The inviting underwater world seems to have worked — since 2004, over 100,000 divers have visited Nemo.
