HI Guys,
Hope you are all doing well in this heat and that you had a great July 4th.
Okay, so I’m back from the deep blue sea and an adventure of a lifetime. To put it in perspective…more people have been to outer space than to the Titanic wreck, yup true fact…so I as in a very small group of people, and I feel privileged, it was awesome.
Okay, before I get to the Juicy details a few quick announcements.
Fran’s New Phone info:
As of July 24th I will be moving in with my fiancee Steve. In 15 days we built an office and a new bedroom, painted, bought rugs, moved furnitue, built an attick and then of course I went away on my little trip…talk about doing two major life things.
Anyway…my phone number will still be 718 738-5390 but it will be forwarded to 914-944-7227. So either number will work.
I’m moving to Ossining New York…for those who need my address email me please.
TV, Radio and Press:
Daily News article – Queens section came out on July 6th, I picked it up at the airport and saw my face in there…pretty cool. Even had me holding up my Ordained minister sign.
Montel:
Aired July 12th, hope you got to watch. I was out to sea, haven’t see it yet.
Canada Press:
While I was in Canada, did 2 major tv shows and a print article about my Titanic dive. Did a follow up interview an hour before I caught the plane home.
Nick At Nite:
I’m on a show called Hi-Jinx – two episodes…no air date yet.
Movie- Signs of the Cross
Ya remember that movie I was in with the Soprano guys and Carol ALt? You know the one where I posed with Don King at the screening party…well John Reidy’s Film…won first place at the Pocono Film festival…so know I’m in a award winning film…pretty cool.
Okay and now drum roll please, pull up a chair and read my Titanic adventure. I put it together at 1 in the morning since I’m moving…but wanted to get the facts to you guys. The chapter in Adrenaline Adventures two will be much more detailed…but this gives you a good idea. My computer will be off for the next few days…I will get back to you guys once I have settled into my new abode. (Yup an SAT word).
Here is what transpired in journal form on the Titanic World Record Expedition.
Hope you enjoy it.
Worlds record #3
On July 6th:
I arrived in St. John’s New Foundland.
Checked into the Fairmount hotel and saw that someone was in my room. Turns out I had a room mate that I didn’t know about. Luckily it was a woman…A german journalist who was taking photos of the expedition. Her name was Brigette Saar. She belongs to the Swiss Titanic Association. She was a source of information about the titanic and also was willing to photos of me on the ship and for my sponsorship. We hit it off great and good for both of us we were neat and had our guys to talk about.
That night we had dinner with one of the key members of Deep Ocean Expedition at the Fairmount Hotel. That member, who was in charge of orientation, was none other than Don Walsh. Don (Staff/oceanogapher) is one of only two men in the entire world who dove to the deepest spot in the ocean, the Marianes Trench (35,800 feet – 14 miles deep). He was in the Navy and dove in 1960 in the Triest. He was in a virtually untested bathysphere since there was no way to know how deep the bottom of the ocean really was and how it would hold up. He tells the story as if it were another routine day at the office.
On July 7th:
Got up early did two tv and one print interview about titanic wearing sponsor merchandise. Canada Now says they also want to do a follow up interview when I get off the ship.
James Camerons film crew got off the boat and we got on. Cameron has one lab filled to the brim with his equipment. Cables for his shoot are seen all around the ship, in stair wells etc. His presence is known.
His crew and the Kelydish (the scientifc ship) are preparing for a live simulcast from the Turkish bath which is 7 levels down in the ship. It has been undisturbed all this time. These first time ever photos are for the Discovery Channel. It will hopefully air live if all goes well on July 24th. You will see the same crew etc that we were dealing with on a daily basis.
They, (Actually this guy named Kelvin) were laying down fiber optics for the simulcast.
Since Cameron’s crew were late getting off the boat (Okay ship), we were treated to a tour of St. Johns, compliments of him. He knows how to keep the natives happy.
At 5 PM we boarded the ship. The Russian crew greeted us with smiles. I think they are checking us out.
Belinda Sawyer, (scientist/explorer) or better known as the woman who was my contact since day one, had to fly out to New Zealand for an medical emergency…which left Rob McCallum, her boyfriend and fellow operations manager in charge and with one woman short. (Belinda got tested and was later given a clean bill of health- YEAH).
They had Brigette and I share cabin, 6547. A room with bunk beds and a common bathroom that we shared with the cabin next door. The next cabin contained,
Reda, (65) and her grandaughter Melody (11) who carried a scooby doo doll and a camera where ever she went. She’d take pictures of people sleeping, eating…etc. No one was safe with her Papparazzi style.
The duo had been invited by Ralph White, (staff) and member of the explorers club. Ralph was also one of our lecturers and the man who was not only with Bob Ballard when he found the Titanic, but helped to decide to look for it. Ralph is the Titanic guru – he has spent more time on the ship than Captain Smith. He knows all the inside scoop about the Titanic, it’s litgation, salvage laws etc.
Ralph related some interesting facts throughout the course of the trip
1) even though everyone says the order when the iceberg hit was to revers the engine, all dials found o the werck were in the “slow ahead” position.
2) The cherub was on a rotating base and had a blinking light. It is believed that 1st class passengers knew dinner was served by the blinking light, not by the bugle call, that was for 3rd class passengers.
3) Ralph brought the technology of lighting to the Kelydish. He was a cameraman by trade. The huge chandelier light (called Medusa) that was down there to film the movie was the first light the fish down there ever saw.
When Ralph was with Ballard, Ballard did not release the coordinates of the Titanic (it was found with Sonar, not submersibles.) Ralph read the coordinates upside down on a table, memorized it, and was later able to lead others to it. A fact he mentions in a movie, Titanica.
Anyway, the four of us, yes the four women, had to share a common bathroom. Remember the Kelydish is NOT a cruise ship…its a working research ship with 17 labs on board and a ton of Russian scientists.
Anyway, we won the record for most times clogging up the bathroom. We only put the three P’s in, poo, pee and paper- but somehow it kept clogging.
Oh yes and the shower is a sprout in the bathroom, you pull a shower curtain around it, to separate the toilet…I could see this bathroom thing was going to be a running issue on this trip, and not just in the sub.
There was also an intercom in our room…for announcements. It was loud and the first time I heard it, (okay the first 20 times I heard it) it startled me to hear a man’s loud voice from behind me in Russian. It was giving crew member announcements. I did bring a Russian Dictionary, compliments of one of my friends’ but it did little help at the rate they spoke.
In the cabin there was a welcome sheet. It said in part:
“The RV Akademik Mstislav Keldysh was designed and built as the largest working research vessel in the world for use with the Deep Water Submersibles, Mir 1 and 2. It is by special arrangement that we are able to use this vessel for deep diving expeditions.”
Even though it was not a cruise ship it did have:
Dining room -deck 4
Swimming pool (Okay more like a large bath filled with sea water)
(Bar, lecture room, arts and crafts room, party room = all the same room)
Gymnasium & sauna.
Bridge/radio room deck 8.
Those were the accessible areas.
We had to keep away from the engine rooms, Mir operations room, but could arrange a tour.
The MIR deck (know as the zodiac) deck was always bustling with activity…we were allowed on it, but had to keep out of way of working crew. The crew slept in shifts and out of 90 crew always about 50 were working.
Email messages normally had to be given on a computer memory stick or written out, and there was no guarantee it would go through. Although nice perk was that Cameron paid $100,000 to have internet service for the month, but even despite that…the email I send to you guys never reached you…so much for big bucks.
There was a doctor on board, just in case we got sea sick or needed an appendectomy. Other little things we couldn’t drink from tap, ship has 220 volt…needed adapter.
We received a daily program on board that was left in our door pockets. It would tell us all the things that were happening for the day…I noticed alot of things focused around food. Breakfast, lecture, lunch, lecture, tea & goodies, lecture, dinner, lecture then movie.
Time for events were given in Military time:
Ie: 1700 Afteroon tea…lavish spread prepared by Austrian and Russian cooks – there first time working together, but they managed very nicely.
1800 –
Kelydsyh departs port of St. Johns for titanic wreck site.
380 miles Southeast of New foundland.
Site of Titanic wreck:
41 , 44.0 N 49 degrees, 46.0 West
12, 465 feet/3,790 meters depth.
It will take us approximately, depending on weather, 38 hours to reach the wreck site.
1930 Dinner served, four course meal. The art of dining!
Every night there was a movie.
Getting use to movement of boat, the seas were calm, even though two hurricanes were brewing on the sides of us and the land was getting pelted. Knew my mom was worrying, had no way of reaching her. I’m sure she said a thousand novenas.
Friday, July 8th 2005 _ Enroute to wreck site in North Atlantic
930 Introduction of Mir Program by the “father of the program” and man who designed the submersibles. Dr. Anatoly Sagalevitch. Anatoly is in all James Cameron’s movies.
He is the one you see at the beginning of Titanic going…”No diamonds” when they open the safe. He is also the one piloting the Mir in Cameron’s movies.
He tells us the Mirs are the only submersibles that can go to any depth in the ocean and stay for 24 hours. (The alvin can go but only stay for 3-4 hours.)
He explains these are submersibles, not submarines.
The Mir could cover 98% of the ocean floor.
The other inaccessable 2% of the ocean to see would cost 50-60 million dollars.
Man however has only explored to date 2% of the ocean floor – but takes samplings.
Each Mir cost about 1 million dollars. If built today it would cost $50 million.
The Mir’s have also gone to the hydrothermal vents. 50 new species were discovered upon first look. Now they have found close to 1000 new animals.
1045 Mir Orientation visit.
The first chance for me to actually go inside the Mir 1 submersible to familiarize myself and see just how small it really is. The actual sub is 25 feet long…but inside it is only 7 feet, (not 17 like I originally thought) and that is for 3 people, two passengers and the pilot.
The seats are shaped in a U fashion and when you all sit, your knees touch. There are two side benches, and one center seat for the pilot with the console directly in front.
It’s very cozy. I decided at that point there is no way I’m going to the bathroom in here. You’d have to stand on the seat and squat with some kind of shower curtain contraption wrapped around your waist as you manuever the toilet packet.
The toilet packet fits up against your body, and when you pee, it turns into gel. It’s the same thing they use on small airplanes. This is when the male advantage comes in.
Okay enough bathroom talk.
There are 3 windows. One center one which is about 12 inches wide and two side windows, one for each passenger, which is about 6 inches wide. The plexiglass is 18 inches thick. Anatoly was very specific and said nothing is to touch the glass, no camera lens etc, because it can easily scratch the windows and is hard and expensive to replace.
Tons of buttons and gadgets all around inside. Pure oxygen is pumped into the sub. There is a co2 filter which takes the carbon dixiode out of the air and will be changed during the dive if needed.
1130 After the Mir visit you are briefed on your dive. It was at that point that I was told I would be the first diver in the first Mir of this expedition.
I found out my dive partner was not going to be Brian Day O’Connor (the one who got me into this in the first place) but instead a Japanese woman named Masayo
who wanted to become famous and set a world record for being the #1 Japanese women to visit the Titanic. She was very outspoken and agressive. She went around saying…”Me #1, I be number 1, I want to be famous.” It became the running joke on the ship. And yes, she took pictures of EVERTHING…I mean everything…of all our meals, of the crew people, of menus, and pictures of pictures. If we waited on line for food, she’d cut the line and say, me eat first…me number 1! At one point later in the trip, the 12 civilian passengers were invited to Rob’s office to buy t-shirts etc. She literally grabbed them out of peoples hands and said, “Me need that shirt.” We all debated about making her the anchor.
Rest of the afternoon is spent going to lectures by Don Walsh and Ralph White.
Another lecturer, Peter Batson (deep sea biologist) also gave lectures. He showed us photographs not only of a giant squid (dead of course since no one has seen a live one, but of a newly found, Collosal squid which is estimated can grow to between 30-50 feet. He is one of the few people to ever see a dead one…we were able to see the photos…something that has not been released to the public yet.)
1700
Safety instructions and abandon ship drill…we had to wait in our room till 7 short blasts and one long emergency alarm is sounded. Then we had to get our life jackets and go to the nearest life boat. These days the life boats are fully enclosed, come with food rations and water, and protect you from the elements. Each one could hold up to 66 people. Couldn’t help but think how these drills came about because of disaster of Titanic, when there weren’t enough life boats. If there were, the Titanic sank slow enough that all the people aboard could have been saved. Felt a little strange.
Saturday, July 9th, 2005 – Arrival at RMS Titanic Site.
RMS = (Royal Mail Service)
The Mir navigation team places 4 navigational transponders around the wreck site.
Watch movie, “Ghosts of the Abyss” a 2001 James Cameron movie…thought…”Oh my God tomorrow I will be doing exactly what I am watching in this film.” I wanted the images of overlay of the today shots of the staircase with the actual staircase burned in my mind. So when I looked at the wreck, I could envision how it was.”
One passenger, Boris, a flamboyant Russian car dealer (actually the biggest in Moscow) says he is staying in James Cameron’s room. He shows us a picture in his camera with James Camerons name on the desk.
Spend the day doing lectures. Realize everyone of passengers around me (outside of Brigette, and two other passengers are millionaires many times over..this trip is pocket change to them.) Yet the common bond is we all love adventure and are about to be come part of a unique club – those who visited the Titanic. We are told that more people have gone to space than have visited the Titanic. We are about to enter a very small, unique club.
The Styrofoam cups:
At this point a bunch of styrofoam cups are brought out along with markers. We are told that we can paint them. They will be put in a mesh bag and then placed in sliding draw baskets which are out side the Mir. These regular size coffee cups will be compressed down, all the air taken out, to the size of a thimble by the pressure in the ocean at that depth. Instant, unique soveniers, that can only be produced in the ocean depths.
We are given a sheet of instructions for diving.
(see sheet that I faxed you guys earlier)
One thing stressed to us in NOT to wear any alchohol or vaseline based makeup. Since there is pure Oxygen pumped into subs. that stuff can ingite easily. I debate since I know this film footage will be shown on tv. Then Ralph tells a story about one guy whose face blew up because he wore lip balm…my debate and vanity is ended. (although I still think about cheating just a little.)
Lunch is my last big meal. I will not eat again till after my dive tomorrow. Going number 1 (and we’re not talking the Japanese women here) is hard enough, but #2 would be horrible. I’m told no one ever did do #2 in the sub, and I certainly don’t want to set a world record by being the first. Nope, I don’t want to be the one with the stinky diaper.
We are also reminded not to eat gassy or greasy foods. It would be bad enough getting a stomach ache down there, but the last thing you want is excessive flatulence. First you can’t blame it on anyone, but second…its not like you can open a window down there. I figure it’s safer not to eat…besides, better for my waistline, and other parts south.
Lydia, the oldest Russian woman on the ship, who is about 4 feet high, is in charge of issuing us our NOMEX suits to wear during our dives. She looks me over, measures me through her one good eye, winks and hands me a suit. I try it on, it fits tight but I realize that I need a bigger one since I will have to wear layers of clothes for the dive to stay warm. I ask for bigger suit. Well I don’t ask since I can’t speak Russian, I basically motion that my butt can’t bend. She laughs, strips me down and issues me another suit.
At midnight I start limiting my water consumption.
I check to make sure my bags are packed for the next day’s dive.
checklist:
Have two full bags of:
List of things to bring down in submarine to Titanic. Belinda told me I could bring down whatever I need as long as I kept it on my side of the sub. This is the first time I’m glad I’m short, in a 7 foot sub, every inch counts.
1- AA books – 6
2- Ripley’s books-6
3- Goldenpalace t-shirt
4- Authorhouse t shirt
5- Ripley’s t shirt
6- Two rolls of pennies
7- Things of Nickels
8- Covers of books that where at top of Kilimanjaro
9- Prayer to say
10- Necklace -Heart of the ocean
11- Two still cameras
12- 1 video camera
13- 1 back up digital camera
14- extra batteries
15- flashlight
16- extra rolls of film
17- Decide to bring down 50 goldenpalace keychains.
Went to sleep early but feeling very anxious. Excited but anxious. Feel as if I’m on a roller coaster ride going up and I know soon I will peak at the hill and come zooming down. Love the feeling, but at the same time you have that white knuckled grip.
One fact that I remember from lecture. The pressure of the sub is 6 tons of pressure on each square inch of the sub…thus why the windows are so small. Anyway, if a pinhole pierced the sub somehow, you’d be literally sliced in half as the lazer beam of water would jet in with all that pressure. (not really worried about this fact though…more worried about peeing in the sub.)
JULY 10th, 2005- DAY OF MY TITANIC DIVE (EXACTLY ONE YEAR LATER!)
I realize through a pure chance of fate that I am diving on July 10th…exactly one year from the day I submitted Kilimanjaro and did my booksigning. I submitted the mountain at 10 AM according to my certificate…and now my dive time here is 9 Am. Estimated time to hit the water…10 AM.
>From the top of the world to the depths of the sea, is almost happening at the same exact time!
Fate, whose to say! But does make a cool fact.
6 Am
Up can’t sleep.
Go to breakfast just to hang with others.
Triple check my bags.
Try to go to bathroom one more time.
800
Rob comes and gets us. Feels emminent…we aquanauts are ready for our mission.
Rob takes us into lab.
The entire Mir crew is there.
They cheer us.
Lydia presents a log book to us and we sign in. It is now official. We are down in history and entered into the scientific log books.
The steel garage like housing for the Mir’s are lifted, exposing the Mir’s to day light.
Their photographer snaps a picture of us.
Masayo goes in first. We are one level down for the other passengers. They are all gathered around a rail with their cameras taking pictures. Masayo is being nugged by crew to go inside Mir 1 instead she is standing around with her hands in the air…Me #1 Japanese.. She keeps raising her hands…the crew nudges her in.
Then I climb up the latter. The passengers ask me if I plan on talking 12 hours non-stop. I can’t promise anything…but I know enough not to disturb the pilot when he is driving…last thing I want is to hit into the Titanic…can see the headines…”Fast talker, talks pilot into wreck.” Not!
Anatoly is our pilot. So you have a Japanese women, a Russian pilot and a fast talking New Yorker. It is going to be an interesting 12 hours.
You climb up a metal ladder. At the top near the hatch, a crew member greets you with a yellow tool box. You take off your shoes and hand it to him. You are now just in thick warm socks.
Inside the submersibe there are extra booties, and another suit that you can wear as the temperature drops.
After we are in, our bags are handed inside.
Anatoly’s wife comments in a heavy Russian accent, “Figures, two women…four bags.”
Mine are filled with books etc. Japanese women…four bags of cameras – not to sterotype, but hey.
Once we are inside, Anatoly presses some switches. The hatch is closed and locked. I could hear the echo from those prison movies when the door slams shut. This is it.
Now, since I had never seen a Mir launch I had no idea what was happening at this point. It wasn’t until the next day when I watched another Mir Launch that I saw all that transpired. since you feel little movement, I simply thought the crane lifted us and dropped us in the water…but no…much more complicated.
Two small boats, one called the Koresh, and the other a rubber raft- the Zodiac, are lowered by crane into the water. They wait for the 8 ton Mir to be hooked and lifted into the water.
Once in the water, this handsome Russian guy in a frog suit, known simply as “The cowboy” leaps from the rubber raft onto the Mir. He hooks a rope to the mir and throws it to the Koresh.
The Koresh then pulls the Mir away from the boat while the cowboy is standing on top, riding it.
Once the Mir is far enough away, the cowboy unhooks the Mir, and leaps into the rubber boat. Both the Koresh and the rubber boat pull away.
(I could feel none of this by the way. There is absolutely no sensation inside of being pulled, tugged, ridden…nada.) We just see that we are bounching in the water.
Okay, “Now we go down.” Says Anatoly.
We dropped 90 feet per minute.
It was at this point that I realized I might have some competition int he talking department. Even though we were warned NOT to talk to the pilot the first 1/2 hour of our trip so he could concentrate…#1 Japanese started in. “Can I take picture now. How fast are we going. Will you turn on the lights. Are we going to see the bow first.” I wanted to smack her. Anatoly looked at me incrediously. I shrugged. No way in hell was I going to get the pilot mad.
I could tell we were in for a long journey.
After 800 feet it was darkness, all you heard were the sounds of the submarine, some occassionally Russian coming over the radio. There were plot points on a graph that represented
the bow and stern of the ship, and then were we were.
A compass told us that we were slowly spiraling down, although you didn’t feel any of it.
At one point in the total darkness of the water Anatoly turned on the lights. I saw this bizarre transulent donut shaped creature come up to the window. It was about an inch in diameter. As I pressed my face closer to the window it opend up and red tentacles speared out, making the creature about 7 inches wide. I felt I was in a star trek movie..better yet, 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Anatoly was plotting the points and making notations in his log book. Making sure we were on course for coming into the ship. The transponders were helping wth location.
He checked our oxygen levels ( a good thing) etc.
I still found it hard to believe I was in a sub.
The decent down took 3 1/2 hours. The walls on the inside of the wall had condensation. A small puddle of water formed at the base of each window. Good thing I knew it was condensation or I would have thought the sub was leaking.
Finally Anatoly announced we were close to the ship.
He said we came in near the stern but wanted us to see the bow first so he manuered around.
Albino star fish were sprawled along the sea floor.
Then we saw it. The bow of the ship. Just like in the movies. It was surreal. Here I was less than 15 feet from the bow with all it’s rusticles, and yet all I could think was, “wow, wow, wow…this was the ship of dreams. A ship that the first class passengers paid an equivalent of $52,000 to ride on, and now here it stands the death bed of all those victims of man’s stupidity- the stupidity of pushing a ship to hard, of not haveing enough life boats, of not seeing a iceberg in time.. This is the famed Titanic.”
I laid on my stomach on my bench so I could get close to the window. And snapped pictures. It was hard to put the realities together, those of the passengers, visions seen in movies, and what my real eyes were seeing. It was an immense feeling.
The trance was broken when Masayo began her photo session. “I cannot see, I need to get closer. Too difficult.” Anatoly said, “Nothings to difficult.” Immediately I liked him.
Masayo repeats, “Too difficult to see.” (I’m thinking maybe if we put her outside the sub she can see better.)
Then she leans over the console, onto the controls and starts snapping pictures through Anatoly’s
pilot window. We exchanged glances, he shrugs.
I choose to try to ignore her and looked out my window. Then I saw Mir 2 from the distance. The lights from the Mir cast an eerie glow on the bow. Made for great film footage.
She kept complaining, “I only 80% happy, I cannnot see.” This is not something you say to the inventor of the sub. I could see Mir 2 was waiting patiently for it’s turn at the bow.
For the next 45 minutes, Masayo kept saying I need more pictures. Finally Anatoly said, “We can stay here, whole dive by bow…if you like.” I piped up, “I would like to see another part of the ship.
She said, “Okay, but then we come back.”
I asked her, “Masayo are you married?” She said, “No, never had a date!”
I wonder why!
We glided over the ship. Rusticles are everywhere outside the ship. (very Few inside) Rusticles are the products of bacteria that eat iron. It is estimated it eats 1000 – 2000 pounds per day of iron. When you see the bacteria hanging down from the anchor it is a river of rust in liquid form.
We saw the downed funnel #1, it fell on top of the quarters and crushed it. (It contradicts Ballard’s claim that the Mir’s damaged the quarters by landing on it…the crushed quarters are the identical outline of the funnel).
We silently (except for the cry of “Can I take more pictures”), glided over the grand staircase. You could see a chandelier handing down from the electrical wires. It was more of an open whole, as the first thing to be eaten by sea worms are wood. All the exposed wood has been gone for decades. Also all human bones in this calcium deficient enviorment are long gone.
It was later at this spot when we circled around back that I did the prayer.
But back to the present, Masayo said, “I want to see stain glass windows down inside.”
Now the Mir’s are not meant to go inside, the small remote operated bots do that.”
But she insists. “I want to go inside.”
Anatoly says, ” Okay, we go down inside and never come back up.”
She says, “Okay.”
I say “Masayo, he’s kidding with you.”
Then I realized how funny is this a New Yorker interpreting a Russian joke for a Japanese women.
We continued to glide over the ship. Saw the promenade deck, Captain Smith’s quarters where you could see the bathtub and the plumbing pipes. We saw the engines, the Marconi room where the men desperately tried to get help from another ship when they were sinking.. We saw Deck A and a crushed Deck B. Tons of windows covered with rusticles. Closed windows, open windows, windows you could see through inside and get a glimpse of the ship.
At one point I did my book signing. That was interesting trying to manuever getting 12 books out of a bag, changing sponsor shirts, trying to get pictures of me int he forefront and the titanic in the back…couldn’t work. Window too small, if you use flash, you only get the inside of sub and window is blurred. If you dont’ use flash you get the outside, but can’t see the person near the window. Did my best with video, and proping up shirts by the window.
Signed books to Masayo, Anatoly, for Ripley’s, Authorhouse and Golden Palace.
Showed the 1912 pennies and nickels I brought down, the 50 goldenpalace keychains,
and the “heart of the ocean” pendant replica from the movie Titanic that my mom bought me.
All books signed were recorded on video.
Anatoly said, “Thank you very nice book, can’t believe I’m with fastest talking women..”
At one point to shut Masayo up he said, “Talk more, talk faster.” Then he looked at me and said,
“but she can’t talk faster than you. I’m in trouble.”
We stayed by the site for 5 hours. Some images were so ghostly, especially when the other Mir would light it up. At one point we were dangerously close to the other Mir…why? Because Masayo was in the window blocking Anatoly’s view. He had to push her out of the way and say…”Now you cause danger.”
It took a while to get to the Stern, since when the ship broke they landed apart.
Anatoly offered us a bagged lunch, but we turned it down…the old bathroom worry again. Ate chocolate though…heard it is a good plug.
When we got to The stern was a tangled mess, and hard to distinquish things. But we did see the port propeller embedded in the sand.
Then we went over the debri field. We saw bottles, third class soup cups, a wash basin,
another cup. Seeing personal items like this had a huge impact. It was not just a hunk of steal, it was the small everyday items that got me.
There was also a pirate cage. A cage left by someone stealing artifacts…but who?
Finally we circled around back to the front of the ship. Then I said the prayer over the staircase.
I figured this is where most of the souls on the ship passed, it would be a good place to do it. It was when I said the prayer, that the hugeness of this all hit me. As I said the prayer images of the passengers that night flashed through my head. Everyone, even Masayo was quiet then and to her credit, she did video tape me doing the prayer.
Then Anatoly announced it was time to go up. Masayo said, “Can you back up and so we can take one picture of whole ship?”
Anatoly looked at me. We couldn’t believe she asked that.
He said, “No one has seen whole ship at one time, to big, not enough light.”:
She insisted, “Yes, yes you back up I use my flash.”
Man if I didn’t have to spend another 4 hours with her going up, I would have said my mind. Meanwhile I figure…just more material for my comedy act.
Anatoly must have wanted to get out badly since he got us back to the surface in record time.
On the way up he mentioned that next year he was going to the North pole with the Mir and an ice breaker ship. It’s never been done before and unexplored region…these are the true explorers…those who pave the way. I asked him if he was worried about finding the hole in the ice to come out of…he said, “I find the hole, no worries.” I love that attitude.
The ride up I was thinking…this has got to be my greatest adventure. I was 2 1/2 miles down in the sea, a place few have gone. I did the first ever prayer down there. I did a book signing, I saw creatures that I didn’t even know existed and I visted one of the most talked about ships of all time, and I didn’t have to go to the bathroom!
It was truly awesome.
At the surface we bounced around for a while. It was cold there at the top, colder than I had been all throughout the dive. Masayo was nauseas and had a bag ready just in case. Pilot whales are attracted by our sonar, and are all around the Mir. I can’t see them but am told later.
For now I just focus on a fixed point. I debate whether to snap a picture of Masayo with the vomit bag..the only time she shut up. I decide, okay, one quick shot.
We came up at 9PM.
The koresh towed us back to the ship and then the crane lifted us on board.
The hatch opened and my ears popped.
I climbed out and was greeted by the entire crew and passengers cheering. Fran is #1 out of sub. We all laughed. I was handed my shoes back and climbed down the ladder.
Brigette took videos. The photographer snapped pictures, and we were offered a glass of champagne. When I went back to my room on my bed was a certifcate and a present of two champagne glasses with “White Star” on it.
Gifts, memories, laughs, and an experience of a lifetime.
The ultimate day.
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Post note: The rest of the trip was spent taking photos, playing ping pong, volleyball and giving the Russians the shirts. They were thrilled. They actually cheered. These people cannot afford t-shirts so to them it was a special treat.
Thank so much to my major sponsors, GoldenPalace, Authorhouse Ripley’s and for all my friends and family for believing in me and helping me make history. WE DID it! Another Capo first!