Adelaide dive instructor Kate Wilkins was so sick of seeing rubbish while diving, she decided to do something about it.
Scubareefing
Sourced From the Internet
By Melissa Fares
Reuters, 14 April 2017
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Renata Rojas has longed to visit the wreck of the Titanic since she was a girl, years before the ill-fated passenger liner was discovered on the seabed three decades ago.
Next year, the 49-year-old New York banker and diving enthusiast should finally realise her dream, and she is shelling out more than $105,000 for the privilege.
"I don't own an apartment. I don't own a car. I haven't gone to Everest yet. All of my savings have been going towards my dream, which is going to the Titanic," said Rojas, who last tried to visit the wreck in a 2012 centennial expedition that was cancelled.
“I’ve made a lot of sacrifices over time."
Beginning May 2018, OceanGate Expeditions will launch a series of deep dives aboard a submersible for people like Rojas who want to see the infamous shipwreck.
The company has the only privately-owned manned research submarine in the world capable of diving to the Titanic's depth, with the other four such vessels in the hands of governments, according to chief executive Stockton Rush.
A lack of private subs, plus the hefty price tag for commercial trips, are key reasons the site has not been explored by dive teams in 12 years. Fewer than 200 people are estimated to have ever visited the wreck.
All told, more than 50 passengers, or "mission specialists" as OceanGate calls them, will set off from the Canadian island of Newfoundland in six scheduled eight-day trips.
The Everett, Washington-based company will take nine at a time on a ship to the site, with each of them given an assignment such as photographing artefacts from the debris field. From there, they will take turns diving in the small submarine to get a close-up of the hulk.
MYSTICAL ATTRACTION
The object of their fascination is RMS Titanic, which sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912 after ramming into an iceberg on its maiden voyage from England to New York, killing more than 1,500 people.
The wreckage, located in 1985, lies on the floor of the North Atlantic 370 miles (600 km) south-southeast of Newfoundland at a depth of more than 2 miles.
One of the worst maritime disasters ever, the sinking of the state-of-the art liner sparked outrage and grief, and still stirs deep emotions for many.
Rojas said this is because it was "a tragedy that wasn't supposed to happen."
"It disappeared for years, it was mystical, and that attracts a lot of people," she said. "That's what attracted me to it."
It was the inspiration for James Cameron's 1997 film "Titanic," a tragic love story that became one of the most nominated movies in Academy Award history.
But it was an earlier telling of the disaster that caught the eye of Rojas, who recalls watching the 1958 movie "A Night to Remember" when she was a young girl.
"I actually wanted to find the wreck but somebody beat me to it," said Rojas, whose father taught her to dive at the age of 12 in her home country of Mexico.
When not working for Banco Sabadell in Manhattan, she spends much of her free time exploring shipwrecks in the waters off New York and New Jersey.
Rojas, who will help monitor and operate the sonar system while aboard the submersible, said she was making the expedition to the Titanic because of her tight connection to the story.
"I don't want any distractions,” she said. "It's such an emotional experience for me, and I think I want to take it all in by myself."
LESS VISITED THAN SPACE
OceanGate's Rush, a submersible captain, said the expeditions have been in the works for three years.
"While people have been there, it still is probably one of the least visited historic sites on the planet," said Rush, who has never travelled to the wreck himself. "More people have been to space or climbed Mount Everest."
The expedition is not a "tourist trip" but rather an opportunity to collect data on the wreck's decay," Rush said.
"It’s a blend between pure research and exploration, and certainly there’s an entertainment component to it," conceded Rush. "We know everyone’s going to want to see the bow because that image is so iconic."
Marc and Sharon Hagle, a pair of avid adventurers from Winter Park, Florida, have also purchased tickets. The couple were visiting the South Pole last year when they decided to make their next great excursion deep underwater.
"It's not a money thing," said Marc, who invests in real estate. "One of our personal goals in life is to not be sitting around in a rocking chair when we are 100-years-old saying, 'I wish I had done that.'"
(Reporting by Melissa Fares in New York,; additional reporting by Angela Moore in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Andrew Hay)
"My first 12 years were in New Jersey, living on a small farm with a pond and woods where we grew a lot of our own food. Being immersed in nature made it seem like a part of my world. I remember being three on the beach when a wave knocked me over and got my attention, and seeing those big horseshoe crabs that come to shore in the summer. I was entranced with birds flying in the sky and very curious about earthworms. Who lived underground? They were just amazing. Being surrounded with life in ways that kids who grew up in the cities didn't have access to was an experience I treasure even today.
"My mother was known as the bird lady in the neighborhood—she'd take in injured birds, squirrels, frogs, turtles…whatever needed help. She was there to restore them to health and return them back to the wild. We always had some type of creature recuperating in our household. There was a moment when I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian, something with plants and animals. I didn't know what to call it, but I really wanted to be a scientist. I wanted to be an ecologist before there was a word to describe it."
"As a child I fell in love with the ocean, but what really has held my attention all these years is the existence of life itself," she explained, mesmerizing everyone within earshot. "As terrestrial, air-breathing creatures, we have focused on the land throughout most of our existence. Now we're beginning to appreciate just how important the ocean is to every breath we take, every drop of water we drink, and to maintaining the chemistry of the planet."
"All children are naturally curious. Not just humans, but think about puppies, kittens, young horses, birds, and fish—all fish. We aren't born armed with an education, we have to learn everything from scratch, [but] the great thing about humans is that we pass information along from one generation to the next. We know that Earth is not the center of the universe, [but] Galileo was put in jail because he presumed to say that the Earth wasn't the center of everything. Now we can accept not only his knowledge, but the knowledge of the smartest people that have ever lived.
"We know what stars are, and even though there are a lot of smart creatures that share this space with us—elephants, dolphins, whales, cats, dogs, horses, some very smart fish I know—they cannot know what stars are. They don't know how old Earth is, but we can calculate back to how long humans have been part of the existence of life on Earth. Bacteria have been here longer than humans, but they can't know what we know—they just can't. We have this special gift that's our best triumph. I love the idea of looking through time and transporting ourselves back to the way it was long before there were dinosaurs or to imagine what the world was like when our parents were kids. To project forward what it will be like in the next 15 or 500 or 5,000 years—that's our gift—to understand that we are a part of nature, not apart of it. Our lives depend on maintaining a planet that works in our favor, which means respect for all forms of life."
"I'm never bored or at a loss for what to do. You could look at a leaf or a mosquito or a beetle or fish and have that sense of wonder. 'How did these creatures come to be?' The diversity in the ocean is astonishing. You look at starfish and realize there are hundreds of kinds of starfish and each one has its place. It's a human thing: We have the power to explore places. As curious as a kitten might be, they can't go down into the ocean. Dolphins, as curious as they might be, cannot be astronauts. They can't get on an airplane.
"The diversity of life and looking at any living thing is a miracle. Life is a miracle. I am a miracle. Everyone is. Our existence is something to keep you entertained no matter what else is going on. As long as you're alive, there's reason for hope and reason for joy."
"My parents encouraged curiosity and having the freedom to explore on my own, and to be out with my brothers or other kids [was important]. It was okay to run off and play in the woods or by the river. They gave me the confidence that they were always there, that I couldn't get into trouble so terrible that they wouldn't always be there for me. There was always somebody who was like, 'It's alright, dear.' And I still feel that way. They've been gone for many years, but they're still there."
"I remember being interviewed by Life magazine [for] a spread on living underwater [around the Tektite project]. They commented that there's nothing that the men's team did underwater that we couldn't except grow beards. There is the matter of muscle, that men are generally better equipped to lift things and swim faster and all that. But it's brain over brawn, and one of the great things about being human is that we can solve problems. You can use your brain muscle.
IT'S A SPECIAL PLEASURE TO SEE A YOUNG WOMAN COME ALONG AND BE AN ENGINEER HOLDING HER HEAD UP AND SHOULDERS BACK WITH THE GUYS, OR TO SEE WOMEN AS CAPTAINS OF SHIPS, CHIEF SCIENTISTS ON EXPEDITIONS, AND HAVING PEOPLE NOT PAY MUCH ATTENTION TO THE FACT.
"I was told years after the Tektite project by the captain, George Bond, who was one of the pioneers of saturation diving, 'You know, you did all right. You actually had more time in the water than any of the men's teams. You got along better than any of the other teams. But I just want you to know I really wasn't opposed to having women—I was opposed to having you.' And I said, 'What did I do?' and he goes, 'Well, you're a mother, and there were risks involved, and the idea that something might happen to a mother would have been a showstopper.' But I said there were fathers, and he said, yeah, but it was different. It's just the attitude. It's a special pleasure to see a young woman come along and be an engineer holding her head up and shoulders back with the guys, or to see women as captains of ships, chief scientists on expeditions and having people not pay much attention to the fact, like, 'Oh, it's a woman doing that!' It just has to be kind of a big deal. Headlines like 'Sylvia Sails Away with 70 Men.' Women we known as aqua-babes, aqua-naughties, or aqua-belles. The guys were just aquanauts. They weren't called aqua-hunks."
"Building on the success of the Tektite project, I was given the chance to at least apply to become one of those special creatures known as an astronaut. Our success as aquanauts helped pave the way for women to be accepted because there are so many parallels: the life-support system that we use underwater, and it's all about exploration. At the time I had the weight of young children and my husband—he came with three children, I came with two, and together we had a child so we had his and hers and ours. Doing what it takes to actually commit to being [an astronaut was too much]. Not saying I would have made it, but I had a chance."
"You need to know the risks. You need to know the reality, but the miracle of existence is that in all the universe, Earth is home. We can go outside the atmosphere, a number of people have done so, but not seven billion, let alone nine or ten. We have to make peace with life on Earth and the idea of protecting natural systems. Wilderness—the living old-growth forest, the natural deep-sea systems, pristine rivers that look like Earth before humans came along—these are treasured places that we need to embrace as if our lives depend on it because, really, they do. Knowing that is a breakthrough. We once thought the world was too big to fail, [that] no matter what we took out of the ocean or forests, there would be plenty. Even if we did see the loss of tress, animals, and birds, that's okay because as long as humans were all right, what difference does it make? But now we're beginning to really appreciate the connection between our existence and the natural world. Now we have evidence that our impact on the natural world really threatens our very existence. It threatens our health, economy, and security, but, mostly, if you like to breathe, if you like to have water that magically falls out of the sky, if you like to have the temperature within a range that is within what humans can stand, you'll take care of the natural world."
"I've been privileged to meet creatures who arrived on Earth about the same time that I did: elephants or sea turtles. There's a bird that lives, when she's on land, on Midway Island named Wisdom. She began learning to fly at about the same time that I began learning to dive in the 1950s. As a bird, living over many decades and flying over tens of thousands of miles—thousands of miles in a single year—she has been a witness as I've been a witness to this amazing era of discovery and also an amazing era of loss. They can fly and see and be witnesses to the change. There are fewer fish, fewer squid for her to eat or bring back to her young and her lifetime mate. The plastics in the ocean did not exist when she started to fly. Airplanes in the sky did not exist. Ships that have been shipping across the surface of the ocean have scaled up enormously in 50, 60 years. She knows things have changed. It's harder to find food; [she has] no idea what these bright, shiny plastic things are that clutter the ocean and kill birds. We can see why these changes are happening, but she wouldn't know, cannot know what to do about it. We do, and that's cause for hope. We need to protect the natural world."
"Support national parks. Nominate places that you love and care about, whether on land or in the ocean, for protection as a Hope Spot by going to Mission Blue. Engage your friends and demand of your leaders that actions be taken to protect wildlife, to protect birds, to protect fish for heaven's sake. We are the most domesticated creatures of all, but the wild creatures that shape the way the world works are in trouble. If they are, we are. Become as educated as you can personally—take advantage of the new means of learning and fall in love with books. Associate with people who care, whether it's in school or in your community or through the Internet. Use your talents, whether it's art or music or that you're a teacher with a way with kids or you're a kid with a way with words or with math. Everyone can do something. Not everyone can do everything, but everyone can do something to make a difference."