Looking to beat the heat this summer by installing your own swimming pool? We thought we would give you a taste of what you almost certainly can’t have when designing your dream backyard aquatic paradise. Firstly, there’s the world’s largest pool with an area equivalent to an incredible 6,000 standard-size 26 ft long domestic pools located at the San Alfonso Del Mer resort in Chile, and, going to the other extreme, there’s Belgium’s amazing 100 foot deep, 660,000 gallon (and heated!) Nemo33 dive pool.

The pool at the San Alfonso Del Mer resort in Chile, South America is absolutely enormous. In fact, it is so massive the Guinness World Records Ltd has officially named it the world’s largest seawater swimming pool. It is 3,324 ft long (1013 meters) with a colossal area of 19.77 acres (8 ha) and contains over 66,000,000 gallons of water. (250,000 cubic meters) That’s an area equivalent to an amazing 6,000 standard-size 26 ft long (8-meter) domestic pools!

Located on the southern coast of Chile on the side of the Caribbean sea, the “lagoon” at the San Alfonso Del Mer resort has clear blue water pools which are transparent to a depth of up to 115 feet (35 meters) and in summer the temperature of the water is a balmy 79F (26C), that’s 48F (9C ) warmer than the sea. The lagoon also protects holiday-makers from the rough waves and notorious currents along the coast.

In order to fill this incredible lagoon, the Crystal Lagoons Corporation developed innovative technology to harvest, filter and permanently re-circulate sea-water. The computer-controlled suction and filtration system keeps the seawater in permanent rotation. It takes in the ocean water, circulates it through the system and then pumps it out the other end.

Biochemist, Chilean businessman and founder of Crystal Lagoons, Fernando Fischmann, said advanced engineering meant his company could build “an impressive artificial paradise” even in inhospitable areas.

“As long as we have access to unlimited seawater, we can make it work, and it causes no damage to the ocean.” With the Caribbean Sea shimmering on the horizon you could be forgiven for thinking you are swimming alone in the oceanbut then a kayak passes you and it becomes a little surreal. Yes, you can sail small boats or paddle your canoe if you feel the need, this pool is big enough for everyone.

The resort project took over five years to build and cost nearly US $1.9 billion and carries an annual maintenance bill of nearly US$4 million. If you’re a lucky guest you could imagine you’re on a desert island with private white-sand beaches and palm trees, an indoor warm-water beach, heated sand, waterfalls and water-jet massages.

If you prefer to stay indoors, how about the world’s deepest recreational diving pool? Situated in Belgium, the Nemo 33 pool has a depth of just over 100 ft (approx 33 m). The pool was designed by a Belgian diving expert, John Beernaerts and is used for recreation, scuba diving practice and instruction and by film-makers and scientists.

It contains approx. 660,500 gallons (2,500,000 liters) of spring water maintained at a temperature of 86F (30C) and has visibility up to 108 ft (33 m). The computer-controlled filtration system ensures there is little or no chlorine smell and fourteen windows allow visitors to view all the underwater action.

The pool has a number of underwater caves at 33 feet (10 meters) and two flat-bottomed areas at 16.5 and 33 feet (approx. 5 and 10 meters) as well as the afore-mentioned large circular pit at 108 feet (33 meters).

Three pressurized rooms at -30 and -23 feet (-9 and-7 meters) with constantly renewed air gives divers and their instructors more time at the bottom, free Aqualung diving gear is available at the side of the pool and Nemo 33 is in partnership with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI). The pool has varying depths so it’s suitable for experienced and inexperienced divers and you can fill your air tank by the side of the pool. Racing your “buddy” to the bottom of the pool just got a whole lot more interesting.

If these extreme examples have wet your appetite for exotic pools, check out the listing at Oobject or let us know if you’ve spotted even more outlandish aquatic facilities in your travels.

September 24, 2007 — Top music downloads

1. Beautiful Girls, Sean Kingston

2. Bartender, T-pain

3. Big Girls Don’t Cry, Fergie

4. Make Me Better, Fabolous

5. Shawty, PLIES

6. Big Things Poppin’, T.I.

7. Buy You a Drink, T-pain

8. Same Girl, R. Kelly

9. Hey There Delilah, Plain White T’s

10. Umbrella, Rihanna

TiVo favorites

1. NFL Football, Thurs.

2. NFL Football, Sun.

3. Big Brother 8, Sun.

4. Big Brother 8, Thurs.

5. Big Brother 8, Tues.

6. The Biggest Loser

7. NASCAR Racing

Google gainers

1. American Nazi Party

2. Cubs’ playoff tickets

3. Anti-Jena 6

4. Anacusis

5. Marcel Marceau

Most downloaded videos

1. University student Tasered

2. The Simpsons’ “Super Sneak” Game

3. “Resident Evil: Extinction” trailer

4. Miss Horrorfest 2007

5. Sally Field at the Emmys

Most e-mailed NYP business stories

1. Flip Flopped

2. Financier Gittis Dead at 73

3. Greenspan Fooled Us All

4. For Merrill, Size Counts

5. Making Book on Move

NEW YORK: Shares of American International Group, the worlds largest insurer, fell Friday in New York trading, a day after the company reported the biggest quarterly loss in its 89-year history.

AIG dropped $3.14, or 6.3 percent, to $47.01 in morning trading. The New York-based insurer late Thursday posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $5.29 billion, or $2.08 a share, after an $11.1 billion write-down on derivatives linked in part to subprime mortgages. The executive running the financial products unit is stepping down, the company said Friday.

“The magnitude of these losses is clearly troubling, especially as we have continued to see further deterioration in market conditions beyond the end of the year,” Nigel Dally, analyst at Morgan Stanley, said Friday in a research note.

AIG said Thursday that it expected more write-downs this year amid the worst U.S. housing slump in a quarter century. The chief executive, Martin Sullivan, said “continuing market deterioration would cause AIG to report additional unrealized market valuation losses and impairment charges.”

Joseph Cassano, who was in charge of the derivatives operation, will leave AIG effective March 31 after more than two decades at the company, Sullivan said Friday in a conference call.

The pretax write-down of $11.1 billion wiped out operating profit, which would have been $1.58 a share without the charge, Dally said. AIG also had another $3.27 billion of losses before taxes on impaired holdings in its investment portfolio.

Excluding capital losses and the change in value of some derivatives, the companys loss was $1.25 a share, missing the average expectation for 69 cents in profit among 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. AIG last reported a quarterly loss in 2002, when it increased reserves for covering corporate boards and workers compensation policies.

“AIGs results in 2007 were clearly unsatisfactory,” Sullivan said in the statement.

AIG guaranteed $61.4 billion in collateralized debt obligations that included subprime mortgages as of year-end.

On Feb. 11, AIG said the derivatives, which protect investors against losses in their securities, declined by $4.88 billion in October and November, four times more than previously estimated. The companys stock had its biggest decline in two decades that day.