New Dutch trawler aims to cut fish suffering with electric shocks

DutchNews, November 1, 2019 

Photo:Depositphotos.com 

A new type of trawler fitted with equipment that stuns fish using electric currents when caught joins the Dutch fleet on Friday. 

The UK 205 Spes Nova is the brainchild of the Ekofish Groep and will ‘contribute to efficient fishing with a low ecological footprint,’ company director Jacob Kramer says in the invitation to Friday’s launch ceremony. 

The trawler is 32 metres long and costs €7.5m. Fish are cooled in a water tank, stunned with an electric shock and then stripped for processing automatically. 

Femie Smit of animal rights group Dierenbescherming says she hopes more fishermen will switch to the new vessel on a voluntary basis. 

Mooi dat er weer nieuwe schepen bijkomen op Urk #Moed #Vertrouwen #Visserij #UK205 #LT295 pic.twitter.com/8YYAh9Hmkh

— Albert Hartman (@AlbertVCU) 10 september 2019

Currently fish are left to suffer for minutes, even hours, before they die, but some are processed while still alive, she said. ‘We don’t cut open live chickens to take out the fillets, but we do it to fish,’ she said. ‘This apparatus stops that, so make use of it.’ 

The boat’s owner Louwe de Boer told local broadcaster Omroep Flevoland he believed that this sort of equipment ‘is the future’ and will become law within a few years. 

The trawler was built by Damen Maaskant Shipyards.

Dutch inventors roll out river plastic clean-up barge

Yahoo – AFP, October 26, 2019

The model on display was the fourth to be built and is due to be sent to
the Dominican Republic (AFP Photo/Robin UTRECHT)

The Hague (AFP) - A Dutch non-profit group committed to ridding the world's waters of plastic, Saturday unveiled their latest invention, a floating garbage-collection barge called "The Interceptor".

It is built by The Ocean Cleanup, who say it will "close the tap" on the greatest source of garbage reaching the oceans: rivers.

The barge, which will be anchored in polluted rivers, is capable of scooping up to 50 tonnes of garbage per day floating downstream, said its inventor, 25-year-old Boyan Slat.

"Under the right conditions we think it could even achieve double that," said Slat, who is the CEO and founder of The Ocean Cleanup.

"The Interceptor" resembles a large houseboat attached to a curved barrier. It is 24 metres (78 feet) long, solar-driven, fully autonomous and able to collect plastic in rivers around the clock, Slat said.

Placed at strategic positions in a river system, its barrier directs plastic to the waiting "mouth" of the barge, from where it rolls up a conveyor belt and is dumped into one of six dumpsters.

The barge has a capacity to carry 50 cubic metres of waste plastic, the equivalent of 271,000 Rubik's cubes, said Slat.

Once full, an onboard computer sends a message to local operators to pull out the dumpsters and empty them "as easily as you would clean your vacuum," Slat said at the unveiling of the machine.

The project will tackle 1,000 of the most polluting rivers in the world "within five years", which contribute to 80 percent of global plastic pollution, he added.

Two of the machines are already up and running: one in Jakarta, Indonesia, and another in Malaysia. A third is being prepared for deployment in Vietnam.

Slat used a fourth Interceptor for the presentation in the port city of Rotterdam's harbour on Saturday. This one will be sent to the Dominican Republic, he said.

Earlier this month, The Ocean Cleanup announced that a special ship designed to clean the world's oceans had harvested its first plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The Interceptor at work in Malaysia. Photo: The Ocean CleanUp

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Boyan Slat launches new project to clean up plastic in rivers

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• Stagnation of the current US Politics: Compassioned (US) leaders will arise in the future
• Shortage of fresh/drinking water: Invention to make salt from salt water magnetic and remove it with water desalination process in high volumes
• Pollution on Earth: 1 - Stop killing the environment! / 2 - The rise of temperature on Earth is “temporary” and is part of the "regular" Watercycle.
• Replacement of current fossil energy source: Use of magnetics based (small/big) engines to produces electricity / free energy
• Plastic pollution in the oceans: Invention to remove the plastics gradually from the oceans

Ocean Cleanup move to the Pacific, ‘a milestone’ says Dutch inventor

Photo: The Ocean Cleanup

Shipping firms look to sail into the future

France24 – AFP, 21 October 2019

Paris (AFP) - Global shipping firms under pressure to cut carbon emissions are experimenting with an age-old technology: sails to harness ocean winds and reduce reliance on costly fuels.

"Five years ago, such projects would have gotten us thrown out by security" at shipping firms, said French naval architect Marc Van Peteghem.

"Now shipowners are listening to us," he said.

A design from his firm, VPLP, has just been picked by European rocket-maker Ariane Group for a sail-equipped cargo ship to transport parts for its new Ariane 6 launcher to French Guiana starting in 2022.

The ship will be equipped with four huge rectangular sails rising 30 metres (100 feet) high, supplementing a motor and cutting fuel consumption by about 30 percent.

It might not be the first, though: French start-up Neoline announced in July it would start building a sail-powered transporter this year for launch by the end of 2021.

"We have 5,000 years of experience in sailing with wind -- it's renewable energy, and less intermittent than solar power," Neoline's managing director Jean Zanuttini told AFP at his office in Nantes, western France.

So far the firm has orders from three clients, including French automaker Renault.

But using wind to meet carbon goals is not as simple as building new boats or rigging sails on existing ones, as some ship owners have already done.

"Our 136-metre ship costs 30 percent more than current ships," Zanuttini said, "but we compensate by using 80 to 90 percent less fuel."

Wind-powered vessels are also slower -- a hard sell for some shipowners and clients who want their raw materials and merchandise to move as quick as possible.

'Everything's in transition'

Operators of the 60,000 to 90,000 oil tankers, bulk carriers, ferries and other huge cargo ships plying the seas are racing to find alternatives to fuel oil as pollution rules are tightened.

The industry generates roughly three percent of Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, a figure that experts say could reach 17 percent by 2050 if nothing is done.

Also, starting January 1, levels of air-polluting sulphur in marine fuel must be below 0.5 percent, according to new International Maritime Organization standards -- a sharp drop from today's 3.5 percent.

This is forcing firms to seek out cleaner, more costly fuels or invest in "scrubbers" to filter sulphur out of smokestacks.

"Everything is up for grabs, everything is in transition," said Gavin Allwright, secretary of the International Windship Association in London.

This month his group organised a wind conference at the Royal Institution of Naval Architects in London, just a stone's throw from Trafalgar Square and its statue of renowned British naval officer Horatio Nelson.

Even if sailing goes back centuries, "the vast majority of the technologies are 21st-century technologies and materials. They are almost fully automated, one-button computer operated," Allwright said.

Beside sails, some firms have designed huge kites that pull cargo ships, though just a few operators have adopted the system.

'Opportunity'

Another option is to use "Flettner rotors" like those built by Norsepower of Finland, employing a technology developed by German engineers in the 1920s.

The tall columns are installed on a ship and set spinning, creating lift that propels a ship forward when they catch a perpendicular wind.

Ville Paakkari, a Norsepower representative at the London conference, said the columns can be installed in just a few hours, and can cut fuel consumption by five to 10 percent.

"The investment pays off in three to eight years," he told participants.

So far, Norsepower's rotors are used on just two cargo ships and the Viking Grace ferry between Finland and Sweden.

But wind advocates say tighter pollution rules -- potentially including more widespread taxes on carbon emissions -- will force shipping firms to clean up their act.

"People only change when they are forced to," Van Peteghem said.

"We need to find solutions so that what shipowners consider a constraint today will become an opportunity, and make them want to change," he said.

New prototype plastic catcher works, Ocean Clean Up group says

DutchNews, October 2, 2019

Photo: Ocean Clean-up

The latest prototype of a Dutch invention to catch plastic floating in the ocean is working, say researchers with The Ocean Cleanup, which has been testing the device some 2,000 kilometres off the Californian coast. 

The new prototype is successfully catching and keeping plastic in all shapes and sizes, the organisation said on Tuesday. 

Earlier versions of the plastic catcher did not manage to hold on to the plastic,  the organisation’s spokesman Joost Dubois told broadcaster NOS. ‘The problem was that we couldn’t control the difference in speed of the plastic and the device. You need a big difference in speed in order to keep hold of the plastic,’ he said. 

The solution to the problem was to use a sea anchor in the shape of a parachute which made the plastic catcher move more slowly than the plastic. Smaller plastic pieces could then be caught in the device more easily, including micro plastics of a millimetre in size. 

The Ocean Cleanup is planning a second version of the new plastic catcher next year which will be able to collect more plastic over a longer period of time. Inventor Boyan Slat and his team aim to eventually halve the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, some 1.6 million square kilometers in size, between California and Hawaii. 

Slat came up with his Ocean Cleanup project in 2012 and spent the next five years developing it, for which he has collected over €30m in funding.

VIDEO: Boyan Slat, the 25-year-old Dutch founder of @TheOceanCleanup, explains how the ship was able to harvest a range of plastics from the ocean pic.twitter.com/EjEfMOIjqS

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 2 oktober 2019

#UPDATE A special ship designed to clean the oceans has harvested its first plastic from the #GreatPacificGarbagePatch since setting sail from San Francisco last month, its Dutch inventor says https://t.co/yFNZwykhJZ #TheOceanCleanup

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 2 oktober 2019

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Ocean Cleanup move to the Pacific, ‘a milestone’ says Dutch inventor

Photo: The Ocean Cleanup

Dutch to appeal against Europe’s ban on pulse fishing

DutchNews, April 19, 2019

Photo: DutchNews.nl

Fisheries minister Carola Schouten has told the Dutch fishing industry she is to appeal against a ban on pulse fishing which the European Union is set to implement, website Nu.nl said on Friday. 

The European parliament voted in favour of the ban, which will have a major impact on the Dutch fishing industry, on Tuesday. 

The appeal process can take several years, and so nothing will now change for the fishermen in the short term, the website quotes the minister as saying in her letter to the industry. 

Dutch fishermen have invested millions of euros in specialized equipment since the ban on pulse fishing was lifted several years ago under a scheme to allow research into ‘innovative methods’ and some 40% of the Dutch fleet now uses the system. 

Pulse fishing involves sending a current of electricity through sections of the sea bed, partially stunning sole and plaice and forcing some into the net. 

Its supporters say pulse fishing is less destructive than beam trawling, which involves dragging a heavy metal bar across the sea bed. Opponents say it is a cruel and unnecessary method of fishing and is depleting fish stocks.

Dutch trawler industry furious as Brussels votes to ban pulse fishing

DutchNews, February 14, 2019

A pulse fishing net. Photo: Ecomare/Pam Lindeboom via Wikimedia Commons

Dutch fishermen have reacted furiously to Brussels’ decision to phase out pulse fishing, a form of trawling using electric currents. 

‘Lies and emotion have beaten science,’ fishermen’s organisations said after the vote. ‘The European Council, the European Commission and the European parliament have been misled by the lies and emotional campaign fought by French environmental organisation Bloom.’ 

In total, 42 Dutch trawlers will have to stop pulse fishing this year and 42 can continue until 2021. The agreement also states that six trawlers can continue to use the technique for research purposes. 

Dutch farm minister Carola Schouten said the compromise was ‘the best’ that could be won in the negotiations. It is, she said, a dark day for the Dutch fishing industry which had been banned from a ‘sustainable and innovative’ way of fishing. 

The financial damage to the Dutch fishing sector could be as high as €200m, the fishing organisations said. 

Research 

Dutch fishermen have invested millions of euros in specialized equipment since the ban on pulse fishing was lifted several years ago under a scheme to allow research into ‘innovative methods’. Some 40% of the Dutch fleet now uses the system. 

Pulse fishing involves sending a current of electricity through sections of the sea bed, partially stunning sole and plaice and forcing some into the net. 

Its supporters say pulse fishing is less destructive than beam trawling, which involves dragging a heavy metal bar across the sea bed. Opponents say it is a cruel and unnecessary method of fishing and is depleting fish stocks.

How electric pulse fishing works, with past EU legislation and complaint by French NGO pic.twitter.com/ueCpz6YvIj

— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 16, 2019

Dutch build artificial islands to bring wildlife back

Yahoo – AFP, Charlotte VAN OUWERKERK, 16 December 2018

The vast expanse of Markermeer lake was until recently nothing more than a
 cloudy mass devoid of aquatic life

Dutch ranger Andre Donker sighs as he looks out at the rippling grey waters of the Markermeer, one of Europe's largest freshwater lakes. "Once upon a time it was teeming with fish here," he says.

But this vast 700-square-kilometre (270-square-mile) expanse of water, which regulates the level of water in the rest of the Netherlands, had become until recently nothing more than a cloudy mass devoid of aquatic life.

Now the hope is that a new artificial archipelago of five islands will bring nature back to the area via a typically ambitious engineering project for a low-lying country that has battled the sea for centuries.

It is "one of the largest rewilding operations in Europe", says Donker.

Standing on a wooden bridge over a pond in the middle of experimental plots of different kinds of reeds, he says he has been able to see the first signs of increasing biodiversity.

Experts recently counted 127 kinds of plants on the islets, most brought in 

by windborne seeds

'We had to intervene'

The lake was once part of the Zuiderzee, an engineering wonder of the world completed in 1932, which closed off a huge expanse of water to keep out the North Sea and combat flooding.

Vital in a country where 26 percent of the land is below sea level, the scheme created an inland lake and polders, land reclaimed from the sea, but at a cost to the environment.

Over the subsequent decades, sediment used to create a dyke separating the Markermeer from a neighbouring body of water, the Ijsselmeer, washed away and sunk to the bottom of the lake.

That turned the water cloudy, negatively impacting fish and bird populations, plants and molluscs.

"We had to intervene," says Donker, wearing a woollen hat to brave the storms from the North Sea.

It's hoped a new artificial archipelago of five islands will bring nature back to the area

Combating vulnerability

The solution was a bold one in keeping with a country whose people like to boast that "God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands".

Eight kilometres (five miles) from the port of Lelystad, the ranger walks down the side of an artificial sand dune. Other similar dunes stretch out beyond it as far as the eye can see.

Still-sparse vegetation covers a large part of the 700 hectares that have been built anew in the lake.

The islets plan is among many being worked on by the Netherlands, which is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change.

Since October, the port city of Rotterdam has hosted the headquarters of an international climate commission led by former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and Microsoft founder and climate activist Bill Gates.

Three wooden bird observatories have been built on the main island

'Explosion of plankton'

The five islets were built in two and a half years and have already served as a resting place for 30,000 swallows this year.

Experts recently counted 127 kinds of plants, most of which have been brought in by windborne seeds.

In the water there is an "explosion" of plankton that "guarantees a large amount of food for the birds", says Donker, in his fifties and whose weathered face shows the signs of 20 years in the job.

Greylag goose, common tern, several species of waders such as the great egret and the night heron have also returned, testifying to the islands' success.

The main island has 12 kilometres of footbridges and unpaved roads

'Beautiful landscape'

In the distance a dredger is helping to create the final dunes of the archipelago, dubbed Marker Wadden.

The project, initiated by Natuurmonumenten, a Dutch non-governmental organisation working for the preservation of nature, cost 60 million euros ($68 million) -- much of it donated by individuals.

True to their reputation as masters of water management, the Dutch used an innovative technique, forming the islets with silt, a sedimentary formation halfway between clay and sand.

"Building an island with sand is not that difficult, we do it all over the world, and what is unique here is that we use silt," says Jeroen van der Klooster, project head at Boskalis, the maritime service provider that built the archipelago.

His team dug a 1,200-metre "corridor" on the main island which allows the silt, led by strong ocean currents, to form marshy areas, fertile soil and reservoirs where migratory birds can eat.

"And that's how this beautiful landscape was born," says van der Klooster from the top of a wooden observation tower, wearing an orange vest and a white helmet.

Three wooden bird observatories, a house for the island's guardian, 12 kilometres of footbridges and unpaved roads have also been built on the main island, which is open to the public.

The four others are exclusively reserved for wildlife and plants -- a once-sterile space now returned to nature.

Dead fish to power Norwegian cruise liners

Yahoo – AFP, November 26, 2018

Leftover dead fish from Norway's large fishing industry will be mixed with other
organic waste to make a liquified biogas to be used instead of heavy fuel oil, said
Hurtigruten, which runs cruises to the Arctic and Antarctica, among other locations.

Norwegian cruise operator Hurtigruten plans to use dead fish to power some of its ships, it said on Monday, as it seeks to reduce its pollution and climate change impact.

Leftover dead fish from Norway's large fishing industry will be mixed with other organic waste to make a liquified biogas to be used instead of heavy fuel oil, said Hurtigruten, which runs cruises to the Arctic and Antarctica, among other locations.

"What others see as a problem, we see as a resource and a solution," the company's chief executive Daniel Skjeldam said.

"By introducing biogas as fuel for cruise ships, Hurtigruten will be the first cruise company to power ships with fossil-free fuel," he added.

The first biogas ship could be ready as soon as the end of next year, according to spokesman Rune Thomas Ege.

The company aims to have six of its 17 ships capable of using a combination of biogas, batteries and liquified natural gas, the cleanest of fossil fuels, by 2021.

Norway, which already has buses that run on biogas, has large fishing and forestry industries which produce vast amounts of organic waste.

The announcement comes as the cruise sector faces heavy criticism for its climate footprint and its impact on air quality.

A large cruise ship powered by highly-polluting heavy fuel oil emits almost as many fine particles daily as one million cars, according to German environmental group Nabu.

On Monday, a French court fined cruise company P&O and its US captain 100,000 euros ($114,000) for knowingly using fuel with excessive sulphur levels, the first such ruling in France.

Norway has a "zero emission" target for cruise ships and ferries navigating its fjords listed as world heritage sites by UNESCO by 2026 at the latest.

Hurtigruten, which aims to become carbon neutral by 2050, has ordered three hybrid battery/diesel vessels which the company said will be "the first cruise ships in the world that will be able to operate completely emission free for periods of time".

The spokesman said that is "and something deemed almost impossible just a few years back".

The first of those three ships should enter into service in May 2019.

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Ocean Cleanup move to the Pacific, ‘a milestone’ says Dutch inventor

DutchNews, September 17, 2018

Photo: The Ocean Cleanup

Pacific Ocean trials of a young Dutch inventor’s system to clear plastic waste from the seas started this weekend, 240 nautical miles offshore from San Fransisco. 

The system, devised by 24-year-old Boyan Slat while he was a student at Delft University, consists of a 600 metre-long floating curved boom which collects and holds waste until it can be collected. 

The boom has a three metre skirt attached underneath it to catch waste floating just below the surface. 

The start of the full sea trial follows hundreds of scale-model tests, a series of prototypes, research expeditions and trials involving a shorter boom in the North Sea. 

If the two-week trial is successful, the boom will be towed towards what has become know as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, 1,200 nautical miles offshore to start the clean up. 

‘Today’s launch is an important milestone, but the real celebration will come once the first plastic returns to shore. For 60 years, mankind has been putting plastic into the oceans; from that day onwards, we’re taking it back out again,’ Slat said in a statement on Saturday. 

Crowdfunding

Slat raised the first $2m to to fund his ambitious plan via crowdfunding in 2014. Today the OceanCleanup has a staff of 70 and counts Dutch marine services group Boskalis and Denmark’s shipping giant Maersk among its backers. 

If the current trial is successful, and if the funding is available, The Ocean Cleanup aims to scale up to a fleet of approximately 60 systems focused on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch over the next two years. 

‘The system is designed to be propelled by wind and waves, allowing it to passively catch and concentrate plastic debris in front of it,’  the organisation says. ‘Moving slightly faster than the plastic, the system will act like a giant Pac-Man, skimming the surface of the ocean.’ 

The Ocean Cleanup projects that the full fleet can remove half of the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch within five years’ time.

The Ocean Cleanup project sails out to sweep Pacific plastic

Yahoo – AFP, September 9, 2018

Ocean Cleanup's System 001 is towed out of the San Francisco Bay in San
Francisco, California (AFP Photo/JOSH EDELSON)

San Francisco (AFP) - A supply ship towing a long floating boom designed to corral ocean plastic has set sail from San Francisco for a test run ahead of a trip to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The ambitious project by The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch non-profit group, hopes to clean up half of the infamous garbage patch within five years when all systems are deployed.

After five years of preparation and scale model tests, "this is what it's all about, this is the culmination of all the efforts," said an excited Boyan Slat, the 24-year-old Dutch CEO and founder of The Ocean Cleanup.

Under a cloudless sky the Maersk Launcher ship sailed on Saturday past the Golden Gate Bridge out into the Pacific sea accompanied by a flotilla of sailboats and kayaks.

The supply vessel was towing a 600 meter-long boom device dubbed System 001, designed to contain floating ocean plastic so it can be scooped up and recycled. The system includes a tapered three-meter skirt to catch plastic floating just below the surface.

The ship was heading to a spot 240 nautical miles off the California coastline for a two-week trial before sailing to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating trash pile twice the size of France that swirls in the ocean halfway between California and Hawaii.

"The main mission is to show that it works, and hopefully then in a few months from now, the first plastics will arrive back into port, which means that it becomes proven technology," Slat told AFP as he witnessed the launch.

"That means that we can then start scaling up to a whole fleet of maybe 60 of these cleanup systems," he said.

Laurent Lebreton, the project's lead oceanographer, said they believe the Pacific garbage patch contains some 80,000 metric tons of plastic waste.

"Plastic has started to accumulate in the ocean since... the 1950s," Lebreton told AFP.

He said that scientists first learned about the plastic concentrating in the Pacific garbage patch in the 1970s.

Land-based plastic comes mainly from rivers, Lebreton said. "But we also find a lot of fishing ropes, fishing nets," he said.

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Ocean clean-up project launches first sea experiment in 2016

Delft student raises $2m through crowdfunding for plastic soup plan

An impression of how the system might look. Photo: Ocean Cleanup

.

Swimming with dolphins in virtual reality to aid disabled

Yahoo – AFP, Jo Biddle, November 19, 2017

A Dutch non-profit has developed virtual reality glasses to enable the
disabled to feel close to dolphins for therapeutic purposes

Swimming with wild dolphins is something most can only dream of, and jumping into pools with captive animals has become increasingly controversial with environmentalists condemning it as cruel.

But a Dutch non-profit believes it has found a way to bring people, especially the disabled, closer to such a joyful experience through the technological, immersive advances offered by virtual reality (VR).

The Dolphin Swim Club is the realisation of a more than two-decade journey by artist Marijke Sjollema, who had her first chance encounter with a dolphin in 1993 while snorkeling off the coast of Mexico.

"I saw this grey shadow under the water and my first thought was this is the end. I thought it was a shark," she told AFP.

She tried to stay calm "but this shadow was following me. And then there was this split second that I realised that it wasn't a shark. It was a dolphin."

"I didn't know anything about dolphins, but I instinctively knew, 'Oh a dolphin, I'm fine. This is a good thing'."

From that moment on, Sjollema's love of dolphins and all cetaceans was born.

"We know that there is something magical about dolphins. We think of joy, and playfulness and happiness and innocence when we meet dolphins. And this is even a healing quality," she told AFP.

She and her business consultant husband, Benno Brada, have devoted their spare time, energy and personal resources to their mission of enabling people to discover their own encounter with dolphins.

The VR dolphin therapy is designed as an alternative to dolphin-assisted 

therapies using dolphins in captivity

Healing qualities

Their first project using normal VR headsets playing a film of the dolphins launched in late 2015.

But last month they went a step further, unveiling waterproof VR glasses, which allow people to drift around a pool watching bottlenose and spinner dolphins playing around them in virtual reality.

This VR dolphin therapy in a pool, still at the trial stage, is thought to be a world first.

"The dream was to find an alternative to dolphin-assisted therapies using dolphins in captivity," Brada told therapists at a residential community for disabled people run by the 's Heeren Loo organisation who were testing out the waterproof goggles in the pool.

The centre has been using the land version of the VR glasses since 2016, and has seen noticeable benefits.

"Some 82 percent of our clients feel actually relaxed by seeing the films," said the organisation's policy advisor Johan Elbers.

"It takes them away from the world they are in, they enter a new world in another mindset, think differently, feel differently, see differently, and relax completely."

He recalled how one young woman, who had long had trouble sleeping, now watches a VR film of the dolphins swimming at night, and falls quietly asleep.

Another man is able to completely forget an agonising pain in his arm.

Dion, a 21-year-old resident of the community, said watching the film made him feel "peaceful."

"The dolphin noises and the water calms me down, that calms me from all the noises that there are, then you're zen," he said.

The VR glasses allow people to float around a pool watching dolphins playing 

around them in virtual reality, helping people relax and enter another world

Sharks next?

The pool-safe VR goggles, developed thanks to 50,000 euros ($59,000) grant from the Dutch government, consist of a waterproof Samsung smartphone in a waterproof backing mounted on a special 3D-printed rig made of recycled plastics.

"Stress is very important as a driver of all kinds of psychiatric problems," explains psychiatrist Wim Veling, from the University of Groningen.

"So we are trying in therapy to make people more relaxed," said Veling, who has been studying the use of VR to help people with mental health disorders.

"The power of virtual reality is in the immersion" into another world, he says on the Dolphin Swim Club site.

For Sjollema, the VR glasses offer huge advantages. Not only can they bring the dolphins to disabled people, who would not be able to travel to see them, but they also avoid the use of captive dolphins.

"Right from the beginning we wanted to make this an alternative for existing therapies with dolphins in captivity," she said.

The films were made during a 10-day shoot in December 2015 at the Red Sea, by a specialist VR team Viemr, using free divers capable of holding their breath for up to five minutes so as not to scare away the dolphins.

The dry version glasses are already being used in more than 150 universities, hospitals and community centres around the world.

And the hope is that the waterproof ones will prove equally beneficial. Sjollema and Brada are looking for a partner to launch their commercial production.

But Dion is ready for something a little more exhilarating.

He would like to watch "a film with sharks" or lions "where the animal is hunting a prey. It would be fun to see a little bit of action."

Dutch non-profit uses virtual reality to bring disabled people closer to a healing swim with wild dolphins https://t.co/Cp1AuBGqj7 pic.twitter.com/InmtnuRz7n

— AFP news agency (@AFP) November 20, 2017