1,200 Square Feet Under the SeaView of one of the most vibrant coral reefs on Earth, book a room at the world's first underwater hotel
Bruce Jones has spent much of his career designing underwater toys for the rich and famous. The 50-year-old president of U.S. Submarines is best known for building ultra luxe custom subs, $80-million vessels that feature private staterooms, paneled interiors made from exotic hardwoods, plush carpeting, and enough on board oxygen to keep you and 10 friends breathing easy for three weeks of cruising at depths of nearly 1,000 feet. Now Jones is redirecting his expertise in undersea opulence toward the hotel industry. His plan: to open the Poseidon Mystery Island, the world’s first major resort at the bottom of the ocean, by September 2008.
“When I was in high school, I was always writing letters to Jacques Cousteau and sketching underwater habitats,” Jones recalls. In 2000, he took the first step toward the real thing, offering a reward to whomever found the best location for his futureundersea playground. “I’ve got a lot of friends in the submersible business who are also scuba divers,” he says. “So I put the word out that if someone came up with the perfect spot, we’d pay them $10,000.” A business associate and avid diver suggested a reef off the Bahamian island of Eleuthera and collected his reward. But Jones eventually ran into trouble negotiating a price for the site with its American owners. After a year of fruitless back-and-forth, he decided to set his sights farther afield, on Fiji.
