Dive, Baby, Dive
A Malaysian Oil Rig Outfitted for Scuba

Today, we’d like to talk about an oil rig.

No, not that one. A totally different one, in a totally different part of the world.

Even better, it involves a scuba elevator.

Welcome to Seaventures Dive Resort, a Malaysian offshore rig retrofitted into the world’s first scuba hotel, taking reservations now.

If Cousteau were an oilman (or if J.R. Ewing loved to scuba), he’d come up with something like this: a mid-sea diving outpost 20 miles off the coast of Borneo. The main attraction here is the dive elevator: a mess of orange scaffolding clinging to the side of the rig, ready to dunk you 10 feet into the ocean. Most importantly, it means you won’t have to battle the surf or backflip off a boat to get underwater—or deal with the unbearable hassle of choosing a floor.

From the moment you submerge, you’ll be sharing the water with tentacle-faced cuttlefish, sea turtles and swirling tornadoes of barracuda. The crew has spent the past two years building up a fish-friendly shantytown in the water beneath the rig to serve as a protective reef. When you come up for air, you’ll split your above-water time recovering in your deckhand-style quarters or appreciating the soothing sounds of the house band.

We hear they do a breathtaking “Smoke on the Water.”