Tennessee Community College Instructors Prepare For 73 Days Under The Sea

Bruce Cantrell and Jessica Fain are instructors at Roane State Community College. Since 2005, Cantrell has taken students to spend time working on the Marine Resources Development Foundation’s MarineLab project. Credit: Roane State

Two Tennessee community college professors are prepping to spend most of the fall underwater in a lagoon off Key Largo, Florida. They’ll be submerged for 73-days straight in what amounts to an undersea apartment, setting a world record according to Guinness.

The previous record for living in an underwater habitat was 69 days, set in 1992. It’s an isolation mission not unlike an astronaut living on a space station, but with an escape hatch.

“If you’re on a submarine, you don’t have the option to get out of the submarine. You can’t just say, ‘I’m done, I quit,’ says Roane State Community College adjunct instructor Jessica Fain. “We’re only 24 feet down. So for us to say we’re done, it would be very easy for us to put on our gear and swim to the surface.”

Fain says she’s so committed, she’s decided she won’t come up even for a broken leg. After all, a diving doctor will be on call.

“If we get sick, we’re just going to quarantine each other in the habitat,” Fain says.

Aside from the record setting, there is an educational component.

Fain and associate professor Bruce Cantrell will be live-streaming a weekly class about marine biology available to anyone who wants to tune in. He wants to spark an interest in science while also making a name for their employer.

“It’s not Woods Hole [Oceanographic Institute]. It’s not Scripps [Institution of Oceanography],” Cantrell says. “It’s Roane State Community College in land-locked Tennessee.”

Cantrell says two-year schools often get “shuffled aside” in the academic world since they have virtually no admission standards.

“That’s one of the things we’re going to be able to tell a worldwide audience: it’s ok to go to a community college,” Cantrell says. “We do things too.”

Cantrell and Fain go under October 4^th and plan to surface 10 days before Christmas. Their families plan to dive down to the underwater habitat for Thanksgiving.

What Is An Underwater Habitat?

There are only a few in the world, and the one Cantrell and Fain have been visiting since 2005 is actually accessible to the average diver (for $675 a night.)

The “Jules Undersea Lodge” had a previous life as a dedicated research vessel. Since become a tourist attraction, the owner claims several celebrities have visited, including Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.

Divers enter through an opening in the floor. Water is kept out of the facility by keeping it pressurized at 27 psi. The lodge is monitored by a land-based command center that is connected by cables delivering fresh air, water, power and communications.

Here’s a video tour: