A hotel under the sea

Want to sleep under the sea? The company Planet Ocean has plans for an exciting underwater hotel, which they hope to build in locations all over the world. The hotel won’t be large, with only 12 guest rooms, plus a restaurant. Guests will get to the hotel in a lift – so no diving or getting wet! The hotel will float 10 metres under the ocean, although it will be attached to the sea bed to prevent it from moving too far. Because it won’t be very deep under the water, the sun will shine down and provide light. Guests will get great close-up views of the fish and other sea creatures, which won’t be bothered by the hotel and so won’t make any effort to avoid it.

The hotel’s design, with walls made of clear plastic, means that when you are in your room, you will see the sea in front of you, behind you, above and below you. You will almost get the feeling that you are swimming in the ocean. The luxury rooms will have excellent facilities, including a shower, TV and even the Internet. The restaurant will serve high quality meals. However, Planet Ocean want to encourage people to eat less fish, so you won’t find any on the menu. The atmosphere will be completely silent though, so you will have to imagine the sound of the ocean around you.

The hotel won’t be cheap to build, and it won’t be cheap to stay in. But the designers are especially proud of the fact that it will be environmentally friendly. It will use electricity, of course, but it will produce its own, and won’t disturb ocean life at all. In fact, the designers hope some sea creatures will build their homes on parts of the building, which will bring real benefits to the underwater world.

The price of a perfect holiday?

Cruises are becoming more and more popular, with around 20 million passengers per year now enjoying holidays on board luxury ships. Many people see a cruise as the perfect way to sit back and do nothing, and enjoy time off work. But what is the effect on the environment of this trend?

Although it usually takes less energy for a vehicle to move through water than over land, cruise ships are often huge, with the biggest ones carrying up to 6,000 passengers. Moving such large vehicles requires enormous engines which burn as much as 300,000 litres of fuel a day. One scientist has calculated that cruise ships create as much pollution as 5 million cars going over the same distance. Because they are out at sea, they also burn dirtier fuel that isn’t allowed on land. Unfortunately, no government has control over the amount of air pollution out at sea.

Cruises also produce huge amounts of rubbish, and cruise ships aren’t usually good at recycling. Waste water from showers and toilets is usually poured directly into the sea – as much per day as from a small town. Waste food from restaurants isn’t put into the sea, but still causes problems when brought back to the land.

Cruise ships also cause difficulties in the cities where they stop. Popular destinations can get five or six ships per day, with thousands of tourists at a time. Good for restaurants? No. Restaurant owners complain that the visitors look around for a few hours and then return to their ship to eat. What’s more, the crowds can put off other tourists, who complain that the streets are too busy. Some towns have banned cruise ships or put a limit on the number that can stop at the same time. People who care about the environment worry that as the cruise industry continues to grow, so too will the issues for our planet.

Athletics in Jamaica

Jamaica has produced some of the world’s best athletes, including stars such as Usain Bolt and Veronica Campbell-Brown. Is this success partly due to one event – the Annual Boys and Girls Championships?

The four-day Championships have taken place every year since 1910. Nearly 200 school students take part in front of an audience of over 30,000 people. The event is also shown on live TV, and the whole country watches what is sometimes called Jamaica’s mini-Olympics. The competitors take it very seriously, and they all want to win. Classmates and former students also come to support and encourage their schools.

School coach Dwayne Simpson has trained many young stars. He believes the Championships have an important role in the development of young athletes. They are the biggest schools competition in the world, he says, and other countries are now looking to copy them. He also believes that the Championships give young athletes a reason to practise. They want to do well for their school, so they work and train together as a team, so they produce better results.

Nathaniel Day, a young runner from Britain, has studied and trained in Jamaica for the last two years. ‘Young athletes here get experience of being on TV from the age of 12,’ he says, ‘so when they’re older, they aren’t scared of big occasions and they perform well. In the UK, athletes don’t perform in front of the cameras until they’re adults, and sometimes they find it hard to deal with.’ According to Nathaniel, the Championships also give young athletes a goal. ‘Because it’s such a big event, it gives them an idea of how exciting it is to perform in an Olympic stadium. It helps them develop the ambition to become champions.’