I was bicy­cling down to Sum­mer­land for lunch today and hap­pened upon the unload­ing of this inter­est­ing look­ing sub­mersible as I passed through the har­bor area. So I stopped and took a few lit­tle videos and still images. Click on this first image for the videos.

The Waitt Insti­tute was found­ed in 2005 by Ted Waitt. For those of us old enough in com­put­er his­to­ry this is the man who found­ed Gate­way Com­put­ers, you might remem­ber their box­es as the ones that looked like cows.

From their web­site: The Waitt Insti­tute Dual Deep­Work­er is a one-atmos­phere, two-per­son manned sub­mersible with a max­i­mum oper­at­ing depth of 2,000 feet and life-sup­port capa­ble of sus­tain­ing two per­sons for a total of 92 hours while under­wa­ter. It weighs 6,000 pounds, is 8.5 feet long and 5.75 feet wide.

The sub was deliv­ered from its man­u­fac­ture in Van­cou­ver, Cana­da in 2006 after which it went to the large salt water tank in Rosar­i­to, Mex­i­co that was used to film Titan­ic and Mas­ter and Com­man­der. Since the train­ing in Mex­i­co, the sub has par­tic­i­pat­ed in two sur­veys off the coast of Ven­tu­ra, Cal­i­for­nia work­ing for NOAA Nation­al Marine Fish­eries Ser­vice and Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San­ta Bar­bara. Last year the sub took a long trip to the shores of Ire­land where it par­tic­i­pat­ed in an expe­di­tion to map the famous ship­wreck Lusi­ta­nia. Click here to be tak­en to the Waitt Insti­tute web site for much more infor­ma­tion. Quite the serendip­i­tous pre­lunch break.