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Wow that looks really cool. I can only imagine it must have been an old drilling rig that was repurposed for another use. I couldn’t imagine it would be affordable to build such a structure just for a diving business. And location would have to be key as well. But what a brilliant idea! Certainly a better idea for an old rig than sinking it or paying money to physically scrap it.
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I suspect if any US offshore rigs went up for sale the dive ops would be outbid by casinos. I know there was some talk about offshore betting on the last almost standing USAF "Texas Tower".
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Greg - 4/23/2012 1:12 PM 
Can you imagine the publicity something like this would get in the U.S.? To have a destination close to home that was all-inclusive, on the water, diving all the time! It would be amazing! I just wish I had a couple million (or hundred million) to do something like this. Anyone got that kind of change laying around that wants to do this with me?
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Greg - 4/23/2012 7:00 PM
Why does it cost $50-$100 million to build an off shore rig? For that much money, you’ld think you could move enough dirt to make an island. Honestly, does anyone know the process and requirements of building a rig off shore? Does a small jack-up rig really cost that much?
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I’m guessing the sheer amount of metal and welding has a big part of it. I think most of the rigs in the Gulf are floating and tethered to the bottom? But the ones here is So Cal that we visit have multiple pilings that go all the way down to the bottom some 650’ below. It would explain why I hear underwater welders can earn $500K per year.
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Greg - 4/24/2012 11:17 AM
For a scuba diving rig, it would only need legs that could go to around 80 feet. Deeper than that and your outside safe recreational diving limits. So that should shave off a few million.
A rig like this would either need research/government funding OR have some other way to make a lot of money to make it a viable solution for venture capitalists. Or a wealthy philanthropist that loves diving can toss us a bone.
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From Greg: Why does it cost $50-$100 million to build an off shore rig? For that much money, you’ld think you could move enough dirt to make an island. Honestly, does anyone know the process and requirements of building a rig off shore? Does a small jack-up rig really cost that much?... Well you don’t want to go with the lowest bidder like the USAF did on the Texas Towers in the 50’s. They were not even watertight so when they went down they went all of the way down :(
I was a scope dope in 61 and had already heard stories of Old Shaky so when they asked if I wanted to go to a Texas Tower or AWACS I chose flying. The EC-121’s wintered in Bermuda and that’s when I started diving :)
There was a proposal to build floating power plants using the temperature difference between the surface and deep water to drive the turbines and that upwelling would bring in fish to feed. I thought the floats would be perfect for housing divers and the marine growth on the outside of the plant would soon be like diving an oil rig :)
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Greg - 5/08/2012 3:00 PM
Do oil companies pay to have a rig decommissioned? Do some of them have internal staff who’s responsibility is to preserve the rig as a natural habitat...OR do they always outsource that to other companies? Does anyone know a company that does that type of work?
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Fid - 5/16/2012 2:29 AM
dived on the Seaventure Rig house reef last Oct, really amazing!!! But living on the platform is expensive, I prefer to live on land at Semporna then taking dive trips to Sipadan, Mabul, Kapalai etc, that cover Seaventures area as well. Life is better on land at night :)
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