Roatan's Only Homemade Submarine in Limbo

October 21, 2008 at 11:45 AM | by pbb | 1 Comment

Just because Karl Stanley's homemade submarine can dive to 2,000 feet off the coast of Honduras doesn't mean passengers will get to see exotic deep sea creatures. You've got to lure them out of hiding, which Capt. Stanley does the old fashioned way, says one of his recent passengers:

Eight hours earlier, Stanley had bought a tired old horse from a nearby stable, led it onto a boat, shot it in the head, tied cinder blocks to its hooves and dumped it in the ocean.

And that actually wasn't the craziest part of the experience.

The 13-foot-long submarine, which Stanley put together in Oklahoma, has made more than 1,000 dives, but it's safety systems are sub-par according to some marine experts. But it's not like that comes as a surprise to people: The captain tells his passengers, who pay $1,500 a head for a five-hour trip, "Your only insurance is that I am going with you."

Lately, though, Stanley's biggest headache hasn't come from risky sub tourism. According to Karl, the vice mayor of Roatan has shut down his operation--and had her husband threaten him with a gun. So for the time being, we're left living the underwater life through an article in Fortune Small Business:

At 1,000 feet down, we're mobbed by four-inch-long squid that garland us with blobs of glow-in-the-dark ink. At 1,500 feet, a two-foot tinsel fish tries to shoo us away by waggling its head. Stanley narrates each passing wonder with such excitement that you might think it was the first time he had seen each creature, rather than the thousandth.

Related Stories:
· Stanley Submarines [Official Site]
· Capt. Stanley's Unlicensed, DIY Shark Dives [FSB]
· Bad Idea Travel: Unprotected Swimming with Sharks [Jaunted]

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