A strange creature was recently sighted in a lagoon north of Athens, Georgia, behind a barn and a BBQ shack, some 200 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Part merman, part machine, it broke the surface of the black water and swam, dolphin-like, to the far shore. "I’m freezing in here!" it shouted at witnesses. This oddity, it turned out, was adventurer, entrepreneur, and aquatic engineer Ted Ciamillo, 40, demonstrating his latest invention, the Lunocet—a $1,250 fiberglass fish tail he expects to revolutionize diving. By dolphin-kicking with both feet strapped into the device, a user can attain speeds twice as fast as the swiftest Olympic swimmers and sustain a steady pace for hours on end.