Hi all

I'm a diver with about 15 years experience, and I had an opportunity come
across my desk to help develop underwater environments for training and sport
diving.

Specifically, this opportunity involves a relatively new technology that
can make simulated cavern and cave environments, and provide a natural-looking
environment while building in safety.

This is NO pie-in-the-sky opportunity and is NOT a scam.  There are absolutely
no "get rich quick" promises made or implied -- like me, you still gotta
earn your money.  This technology can be fully researched on the internet.
My only take on this -- I do get a commission on the closure of delivered
projects through my partners.  

You can see a little bit of info at <http://www.gatorgard.com/> -- that's
the company that sells the material application system and the materials.
You can see more about my partner at <http://www.mermaidhouse.com/> -- our
primary business is building the best darn pond you can own, but we don't
limit the pond concept to just making habitats for fish.  We want to expand
our business into selected larger projects, while still maintaining a focus
on our core business -- building beautiful ponds for people to enjoy. Please
view their sites and then email me with questions or concerns.

Here's how it works.  My business partners use a few relatively recent process
and material advances in applying poly-urea coatings.  These coatings are
food-safe and are virtually indestructible, and last almost forever.  Well,
that's not entirely true -- the Amazon Systems only offers a 25-year warranty
on pond coatings we apply. That's a long time.

This sprayed-on stuff provides a fabulous conformal coating on almost anything,
and has a set time measured in seconds.  You can spray in the morning, and
fill -- or be diving -- in the afternoon.

So here's what I'm looking at -- visualize an underwater Dieneyland, with
a manufactured cavern / cave environment.  An underwater complex of simulated
caves can be built in an existing water body (drained for construction),
or assembled on the surface and then lowered into place.  You build the cave
in air, spray the poly-urea coating, and then add water.

Obviously, it involves some creative effort to make realistic underwater
stuff, and if the pieces are lowered into water, it also requires some significant
engineering and rigging work.

Bottom line -- would you pay an EXTRA $20 a day to dive on a manufactured
cavern system like this?  I know I would.

If you're a dive operator, would you be interested in selling access to a
feature like this?  The payout would NOT be in a couple years.  You'd have
to capitalize on 20 years.  The cool part?  With only minimal maintenance,
this kind of feature would probably last 50 years underwater, exclusive of
storm damage.

On a smaller scale, this same technology could be adapted to a back yard
swimming pool or an on-site training pool, with obviously smaller features
like just a single swim-through stalactite feature, or a 30-foot simulated
overhang environment -- for a cost around $5K to $20K.

You could even build a cool grotto for your home hot tub in the four-figure
range.  Well, maybe more, if your hot tub seats 50.

I'm NOT standing here with an order pad in my hand.  Instead, I want to get
some feedback on how divers all over the world respond to the idea of diving
a natural-looking, man-made underwater overhead environment.

Would you pay to play?

If you could afford to add a cavern or grotto to your backyard scuba pond,
would you consider the idea?

Please reply here, or feel free to target me at jstrohm@ev1.net
As with all material processes, MSDS are available on request.  Please ask.

And YES if you wanna build something, we can talk business.  I can't give
an estimate without doing a lot more work with you, but I can offer a few
solid numbers to get you started on your own calculations.  Please take those
requests to email, so as not to disturb the good people on this group.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this.

Jim