TAMPA, Fla. — A USF researcher, who’s trying to set a world record by living underwater for 100 days, is halfway to his goal.
"If you find a job where you love everything that you do and you're chasing your passion and chasing your dream, you're not working,” said Dr. Joseph Dituri.
ABC Action News first brought you his story in March, as the USF associate professor, also known as Dr. Deep Sea, attempts to break a world record by living underwater for 100 days.
Now, he’s halfway there.
"Everybody asks what day I'm on, and I'm like hold on, three, carry the one, okay 50, yeah 51,” said Dituri.
USF said the current world record for living underwater is 73 days.
The US Navy veteran is living 30 feet below the surface in a 100-square-foot area in Key Largo. He’s studying how the human body responds to long-term exposure to extreme pressure, all while teaching his biomedical engineering class online.
Dituri said he doesn’t get lonely and keeps very busy, like doing outreach for kids.
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"I've spoken with Hanoi. I've spoken with Australia. I've spoken with Ireland. I've spoken with Abu Dhabi, UK, we're all over France, I mean, it's crazy, right? So we're talking to kids in all kinds of places to get them excited about STEM and the STEM outreach,” said Dituri. “I go out for a dive once every day at the very least, maybe twice, that takes up an hour."
He said among the challenges are the logistics of it all.
"How do you get the food down? How do you make sure that this works? How does that happen? What happens, true story the other night, what happens when thunder takes out a generator and shorts out an entire transformer and the island of Key Largo goes dark?” said Dituri.
Dr. Dituri said he’s also learning a lot about himself as he continues the second half of his 100-day mission.
"I gotta tell you, the science is important, the inspiration that we're giving to these kids. When I'm high-fiving a little girl in this window, like I don't care how many days,” said Dituri.
