UNDERWATER PIONEER PHIL NUYTTEN.

Deep Thoughts

Text: CHANTAL TRANCHEMONTAGNE

By the time he was 11 years old, Phil Nuytten knew he was going down. All it took was a trip to the aquarium in English Bay, B.C. Seeing the surreal sea launched his dream of becoming an underwater explorer. “I wanted to see everything for myself,” says Nuytten. That summer, he fashioned his own mask and marched down to the shores of Vancouver’s Stanley Park to test his contraption. “It didn’t work. But just before the water poured in, I could see,” says Nuytten. “It was a revelation.”

Forty years later, leaky mask boy has one of the most impressive resumés in the diving industry: subsea engineer, marine archeologist, author and lecturer. His company, Nuytco Research Ltd., has pioneered some of the most advanced equipment in the field, like the DeepWorker submersible, dubbed the Lamborghini of the underwater world. Nuytten’s machines have been used by the National Geographic Society to discover new life forms, by NASA to salvage booster rockets from the ocean floor and even by James Cameron for his films Titanic and The Abyss.

Nuytten still marvels at being able to see down into the ocean’s depths. “Every trip to the sea bottom is like a trip to Mars! Everything you see is new, strange and exotic.” As for the future, he dreams of creating the tools that will one day enable humans to live and work in other worlds. “I want to find a new far-distant shore, as our fathers did, years before. The spirit that drove them drives me.” Now that’s deep.

To watch for in 2005:

_ Release of the Exosuit, a lightweight “wearable submarine.” The single atmospheric suit means a person can live underwater for several days at a time.

_ Development of an underwater colony where workers can live for weeks or months if necessary, which would serve as a base camp for undersea mining operations.

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