I found the Titanic (no scuba gear required)

Over on New World Notes I read about a new sim created by "a real world company offering actual ocean tours", and as a real world enthusiast of such tours I decided to investigate.

It turns out that "Dive" was created by PADI (the Professional Association of Diving Instructors) - an industry certification organization. In the main building, there is a tremendous amount of information about scuba diving, and down on the beach they are offering (limited quantities of) free scuba gear.



It became clear that the suit had too many attachments in the head area to support the Virtual Bailey avatar (I hate when his head disappears).



So I changed into my other main avatar and walked down the beach to the water. As soon as I reached waist height, my avatar automatically stopped walking and began swimming, intermittently dischanging bubbles from the virtual regulator.



The swimming motion, speed, resting position, and buoyancy all accurately convery a real world diving experience. There are plenty of underwater areas to explore, with varied marine life and even a wreck! According to the heads-up-display gauge, my dive lasted 17 minutes!

The Greenies build is one of the most interesting places I've encountered in a while. When you arrive, it's not immediately clear where you are or what you should do. Subtle arrows are a clue.



Then, you walk through a hole in the wall into what seems to be a house.



But further exploration reveals that you are actually in a dollhouse inside a much larger house.



It's a convincing exploration in scale, and there are plenty of things to do, for example - I ran around in this hamster wheel for a while.

I was enthusiastic after reading an article about Evian enterian Second Life and providing free avatar skins to residents as part of their "Bring your skin to life" campaign.

I tried several times to locate the build, and after having no luck using Search, the Map, or the Pogon link in the article, I finally found a clue in the comments (although the island has a telehub so even with a direct teleport I still had to wander around).

The small rental stall contains a billboard and two identical vending machines.



The vending machines dispense 3 free male skins, 3 free female skins, and an animated Evian water bottle.









The quality of the skins is excellent, and I applaud Evian for providing something of value to residents, but I'm perplexed by the impossible to find simple mall space.