WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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On the north-east coast of Germany,
looking out on the Baltic Sea,

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there’s a tourist attraction
that I think is really strange.

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Four of them, actually, all identical
at different seaside resorts.

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And I think they’re strange
because they’re modern.

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The Tauchgondel, the diving gondola,
feels like it should be

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some 19th-century
Industrial Revolution invention.

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It’s a diving bell: a chamber that
sinks under the water

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and lets you look out
on the ocean floor.

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Which is only a couple of metres
down at this point, sure,

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but this isn’t like the Disneyland
fake-submarines that pretend to dive

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using some bubbles and lighting tricks:

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this really does go underwater.

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To me, this feels like it should be

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some sort of overcomplicated,
steam-powered thing

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that’d entertain rich Bismarck-era
royalty for a few years,

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and then fall into disrepair
and turn up in a few old photos

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of odd bizarre seaside attractions
from the past.

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But this?
It opened in 2009.

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(IN GERMAN):
 
 

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The technology here is modern.

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And with modern technology comes
modern safety standards.

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This gondola has the opposite problem
to most elevators:

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the average tourist isn’t going to be
worried that it might fall,

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but they are going to ask if it
might get stuck down there.

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Or worse, that it might, uh...

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...spring a leak.

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[horn sounds]

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[mechanical noises]

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Ha! Okay.
I did not expect that.

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Just... having a wave right
in your face is weird.

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I didn't expect the sound.

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I don't know why. But I
didn't expect the sound.

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[deep, rumbling waves]

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There is one slight catch, of course:

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there’s not too much usually
visible in the Baltic Sea.

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It’s not crystal-clear Caribbean water
on the best of days,

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and today all those waves are
churning up the ocean bed as well.

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So if you were hoping that sharks

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or huge schools of tropical fish
would swim by,

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you’re going to be disappointed.

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You might get a couple
of curious flounders,

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or a few jellyfish passing by.

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The novelty is being on

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what is, to be fair, an actual
short diving expedition

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without needing scuba equipment
or a wetsuit.

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But the folks here were worried that
people might be disappointed if

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they didn’t see anything...

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so they actually close the
shutters and show a 3D film.

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If the goal was “see the ocean floor”,

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well, you could do that without the chamber
and all the fancy mechanisms:

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you could set down a few big walls
with thick windows in them,

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pump the water out, and just have
a regular viewing gallery

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that you could stand in.

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But that’s not as cool.

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It is a little unnerving seeing
the ocean rise around you,

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out of your control,

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and it’s also a bit reassuring
to surface again into the sunshine.

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Because in the end,
it’s not about the fish.

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It’s about the experience.