Zee wreckage of zee Santa Rosa lies deep in dangerous waters. Naturally, I sent my son Philippe down to explore. I always send Philippe. Zee wreckage was surrounded by a school of poisonous deep sea scrod, and the curious fish moved to examine zis intruder into their realm. Unfortunately, Philippe is a very slow swimmer. Fortunately, I have more sons.
For all the water in Second Life, we don’t spend a lot of time under the surface, probably because there’s nothing much there. Most SL water is for swimming on or sailing on (or, frankly, making for beautiful sunset pictures).
PADI Group is a real-life diving company that would like to whet your appetite for the real thing by giving you that experiance in Seond Life. While a good portion of their Dive World region is taken up by land, there is still plenty of space for some interesting sights under the sea.
Strangely enough, PADI doesn’t offer any freebie diving gear. There is, however, an atoll attached to their island where a variety of vendors can get you suited up. I bought a package from Heps Virtual Divesystems and jumped into the water.
A word to the wise: Read the instructions before you go diving wth equipment like this. Under the water you get nice swimming animation and bubbles, but I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t just move up and down the normal way. After a lot of frustration I finally gave in, checked my male genes at the door, and read the manual.
Under water, there is plenty to see. Manta rays, squid, whales, shipwrecks, and strange smoking… somethings. Maybe a information would be helpful here. PADI is very good at placing underwater signs here and there that suggesting that you might want to try diving for real. Whatever.
Back on land, if you join the PADI group you can rent a DPV, a little motorized device that will move you faster under the waves. In theory you can also use a personal submarine just offshore, but that doesn’t work. The same goes for a gear demonstrator in the main building. The buttons you click for information don’t give you information. There’s a very sparse club on one corner of the island. So while the undersea experience is lovingly executed, the stuff on shore is a work in progress.
No matter. In Dive World, what’s under the water is all that matters.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dive%20World/123/134/29
Posted by Garth Goode 
