Can You Imagine Diving NYC? #risingsealevels

by Steve Lewis:

photo by: standfordflipside.com

Diving NYC… Signed up for the dive trip of a lifetime #innundatedNYCTour. Really, really pumped!

Wow, #divetimessquare was a blast. Swum along Broadway. Not certified to enter theatres or subway but still fun!

How do they get the lights to work underwater? Fascinating to see all those neon lights shining through the kelp! #confusedbytechnology.

7th Avenue… Many gaudy fish species to be seen. Took lots of photos. Some swum very close to us. Not too sure what they were looking for from us. Very difficult to tell the males from the females! #whichiswhichgender?

Signed up for the DPV ride past the Rockefeller Center and on to Radio City Music Hall. Only the first handful of floors are underwater. Our boat tied up to one of the smaller buildings. Marine life was incredible. Lots of sharks though. Guide explained that there is a huge shark community around the old Wall Street. #skyscapersarefun

Dived Brooklyn Bridge today. Not a very pleasant experience really. So many dive boats trying to tie-up at same time. We waited 20 minutes to get into the water. #trafficjambrooklyn

The best part of the day was the surface interval. Vendors in small boats floated by selling every conceivable type of food from Dim Sum to Jewish Deli. #eatingrightinbrooklyn

MOMA and a swim around the sculpture garden. Not sure if the seawater has caused some of the weird corrosion or if that look was the intention of the original artist. #whounderstandsmodernart

Afternoon at Central Park Zoo. What a gas! Animals in air-quariums. Swam past some very confused looking apes, and almost brained myself when I bumped into a glass wall separating us from the polar bear enclosure. One thing I noticed, no need for “Do Not Feed the Animals” or “Keep Your Hands Away From Cage” signs. #differentperspectiveonsubmergedwildlife

Certainly getting the hang of touring a submerged city now. Understanding what to look for and what to avoid. We have a guided tour of a subway station tomorrow. A little worried about the overhead environment.

Subway station was cool and not underground at all but one of many stations on the High Line. Did a tour of the platforms, swum under the line itself with the street below us, and a did a guided swim-through of a parked subway train. Highlight was using the special cans of underwater spray paint to add to the graffiti already on the walls and carriages. Not much space left but managed to write: #ilovenyc and left it at that.

Highlight of the trip: diving the new Yankee’s Stadium! Truly great experience to swim around the outfield and up over the outfield bleachers. Not crowded at all. We were the only dive boat on site and we had the whole place to ourselves. Awesome to think that NY once had a baseball team! #redsoxrule!

Last day and a trip to New York Botanical Gardens. Have never seen so many corals and invertebrates. Filled one and a half SD Cards with photos. Tied up to the trunk of a huge old tree with thousands of birds perched in its canopy, and did our first dive around its roots and through a forest of water lilies. Tons of small fish, and many exotic species of aquatic plant. Swum around the huge dome of the biggest greenhouse I have ever seen. Probably my favorite dive of the whole trip. #flowersinthebronx