‘Cold and dark’: The journey to the bottom of the sea on a Titanic tour
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The trip to the Titanic wreck is said to be unforgettable but frightening, according to those who have done it.
PHOTO: AFP
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LOS ANGELES - The journey to the ocean floor to reach the wreck of the Titanic is one that gets relentlessly colder and darker, says one of the handful of people who have ever visited the luxury liner’s watery grave.
Mr Tom Zaller, who runs the company behind Titanic: The Exhibition, said touring the ship’s resting place in a tiny submersible – like the one that vanished Sunday in the North Atlantic – was unforgettable, but frightening.
“As you get deeper and deeper, it gets darker and darker,” he told AFP of his voyage, 23 years ago.
“When you first start off on the top, it’s quite warm inside. But as you descend, it gets cold.”
Mr Zaller, whose exhibition opens in Los Angeles at the end of the month, said he was hoping desperately that the missing submersible could be found before its oxygen supplies run out
The 6.5m tourist craft lost communication with its mother ship less than two hours into its trip.
The submersible, named Titan, was carrying British billionaire Hamish Harding and Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who also have British citizenship, on US$250,000 (S$335,000) tickets.
Also on board is the company’s CEO, Mr Stockton Rush, and French submarine operator Paul-Henri Nargeolet, nicknamed Mr Titanic for his frequent dives at the site.
Captain’s bathtub
More than two decades ago, Mr Zaller travelled to the site, 650km from the nearest land as part of a research trip, aboard a Russian vessel with two submersibles.
“The sub is a 2m-wide pressured sphere,” he said. “There is a pilot seat in the centre, and then two benches on either side, with three portholes.
“On top there is an entry portal, and when you climb down inside the sub you then close it from the inside and there’s another trap on the outside and once you’re in, there is no going back. It is quite a commitment.”
The sub is hoisted off the deck of the ship into blue waters which quickly turn dark as the vessel begins to sink.
For 2½ hours, there is virtually nothing to see, with the sub conserving its power to use at the seafloor.
Then you reach the bottom, where the sub kicks up silt.
“When you look out the portal, it is a little cloudy. And then as you start to fly, when you get your buoyancy, you start to travel forward, you kind of come through this cloud.
“And then imagine coming through that cloud and being in this perfectly still environment on the bottom of the ocean, you know 3,800m below the surface and then you see a piece of debris, a giant piece of the Titanic.
“And then you see a cup or a teapot, and then at other moments you can see where the side of the ship is removed and you can see Captain Smith’s bathtub full of water.”
‘Terrified’
Mr Zaller said he was nervous on his voyage to the ocean floor, despite the obvious professionalism and attention to detail by those running the trip.
“But still you’re sending a very small vessel 2½ miles (4km) down, which is incredibly complicated and technical,” he said.
“It’s just this very seemingly unsophisticated sphere.
“I took a video camera and a video of myself. And I watched it later and I was absolutely terrified.”
The 6.5m tourist craft lost communication with its mother ship less than two hours into its trip.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Mr Zaller has known sub pilot Mr Nargeolet for decades and was in touch with Mr Rush just before he embarked on this tour.
He says he is hoping against hope that everything will work out.
“I was in that sub for 12 hours with everything working fine,” he said. “They’ve been there for almost four days. I just can’t imagine.
“I hope and pray that they’ll be okay and that they’ll find them.” AFP
