Tanzania underwater room where proposal turned deadly is anchored 32-feet deep
A Louisiana man drowned Thursday while proposing to his girlfriend below their underwater cabin at a resort off the east coast of Africa.
Steve Weber and his girlfriend Kenesha Antoine were staying in an underwater cabin at the luxury Manta Resort off Pemba Island in Tanzania when Weber dove below the submerged hotel room and swam up to its window proposing with a handwritten note. He “never emerged from those depths,” Antoine shared the tragic news on her Facebook Page.
The water cabin is three stories with a sundeck on top and outside lounge area at sea level, and a bedroom below deck submerged 13 feet underwater.
Swedish company Genberg Underwater Hotels built the floating room, held up by anchoring lines, 820 feet away from the coast of Pemba Island: "Sleep happily under the stars to the soft murmuring of the sea," Manta Resort describes of the cabin on its website.
One night in the Underwater Room costs around $1,700 a night for two people (a minimum stay of three nights is required), and it's anchored in water around 32 feet deep. The cabin has also been described as an experience for "both divers and non-divers." The underwater cabin is part of a larger resort.
There are two large windows where Weber can be seen in a video Antoine posted on Facebook holding the note that read: “I can’t hold my breath long enough to tell you everything I love about you but everything I love about you I love more every day.” Weber then flipped over the note to the proposal: “Will you please be my wife. Marry me?” He then pulled out a ring before swimming out of sight.
It’s unclear what happened after that. Manta Resort did not immediately return a request for comment. The resort told the BBC that Weber “tragically drowned while free diving along outside the underwater room” on Thursday, with the resort’s CEO, Matthew Saus adding: “everyone is shaken to the core” by Weber’s death.