IRISH DIVER RETURNS TO TITANIC
26th July 2005
Rory Golden, of Flagship Scubadiving Ltd, Dublin, returns to the site of the world's most famous shipwreck, RMS TITANIC, 1st - 8th August, as a part of the HARRIS EXPEDITION, led by G. Michael Harris, owner of the renowned attraction, Titanic - 'Ship Of Dreams' in Orlando, Florida
Mr. Golden will be taking part in a film documentary capturing a Guinness World Record diving attempt by Mr. Harris's 13 year-old son, Sebastian Harris, the youngest person to ever dive to Titanic. Golden will be in charge of dive safety for underwater camera crews who will be filming the launch and recovery of the submersibles as well as diving to the wreck 4,000 metres deep, and placing a Memorial plaque from Belfast City Council and Harland and Wolff in honour of the men and women who built Titanic, the 22 Belfast men who lost their lives, and all those who perished in the tragedy.
Five years ago, he also placed a memorial plaque from Cobh, the ship's last port of call, on the ship.
It has always been his dream to return to TITANIC one day and leave a tribute from the city that built it.
BBC Northern Ireland will be sending their environment correspondent, Mike McKimm, to document the Expedition. This will be broadcast later in the year as a special programme.
The bow of the Titanic. Photo © Rory Golden
August 5th 2000
Thirteen hours in a six foot sphere. No way to stand up or lie down properly. Condensation running down the sides, and dripping from the top. Extremes of humidity at the surface and cold on the bottom. Two and half hours to descend and three hours to ascend. Bladder making its presence felt.
I would do it all over again.
I know that I probably never will.
How wrong I was.
Not many people can say they that they had a once in a lifetime opportunity. Even less can say they had a twice in a lifetime opportunity. Yet there I was once again, on August 11th 2005, looking through the viewport of MIR 2 at the memorial plaque from Cobh that I placed on the bridge of Titanic 5 years previous. How did it happen again for me?
March 2005
The mobile rings as I’m driving out of Dublin. It’s Mike Harris, owner of TITANIC the EXHIBITION in Orlando, Florida. “Hey Rory old buddy, wanna go back to Titanic??” he asked. Mike was the man who employed me in the summer of 2000 when he was CEO of RMS Titanic Inc. the legal owners of the wreck. Now he was returning with his son Sebastian to set a Guinness world record for the youngest person to dive to the ship. He wanted me back on board as part of the team and he was negotiating with BBC Northern Ireland to make a programme about me returning with a memorial plaque from Belfast. This would help defray part of the enormous costs in mounting such an expedition, and fulfil an idea of mine that one day an appropriate tribute would come from the ship’s place of birth and be placed alongside the Cobh memorial. The next few months were full of negotiations, visits to Belfast, false starts, hopes dashed, and general frustration. In fact, by June I had resigned myself to not going back at all.
July 20th 2005
Then I got the call to say that we had a green light, BBC Northern Ireland had agreed a deal. The next few days were spent frantically organising flight tickets to St John’s, talking to Harland + Wolff about a memorial plaque to be made in less then a week, going to Belfast to meet the Lord Mayor at a photo call, and finally meeting with Mike McKimm from the BBC, the man who was to be my buddy on the dive.
The plaque brought from Belfast to be placed on the wreck. Photo © Rory Golden
Mike is the environment correspondent for BBC Northern Ireland, and has spent many a night investigating illegal dumps, being chased down dark roads, highlighting water issues, etc. His attention to detail and persistence in getting the truth has resulted in awards for his work. These qualities would make themselves felt on our trip. We had spoken a few times on the phone before we first met, so I had an inkling of his character beforehand. He is also an avid sailor, and has sailed solo up and down the Irish Sea on a few occasions. It’s a bit worrying when you know that you are going to spend two weeks in close proximity to a stranger, and travel to the bottom of the ocean with him. We hit it off straight away and discovered that we both had similar warped senses of humour. That would make the ten hour trip in the MIR submersible ok for us then, but maybe not for the pilot...
July 29th 2005
Upon arriving in St John’s, Newfoundland, we were met by Steve Moore, the general manager of Ocean Quest Dive Centre in Conception Bay. We were staying there for two nights before we boarded the Keldysh, the Russian mother ship to the MIRs and our home for the following ten days. Rick and Debbie Stanley have a brilliant dive centre here, with on site accommodation, wreck diving, whale watching, iceberg diving, you name it. I had chartered tanks, weights, compressor and a RIB from them for our expedition, as we were due to do some sub surface underwater filming at the wreck site. The next morning we joined a group of English divers for dives on two Second World War wrecks in the Bay off Bell Island. These were ore carriers that had been torpedoed while at anchor and are classic intact and upright wreck dives. They are the Lord Strathcona, and Rose Castle. Visibility was excellent, but be aware, the thermocline at 20 metres turns the water from cold to freezing! At 35 metres my hands were numb in their 3mm gloves and took about 20 minutes to warm up after the dive. A spare pair of 5mm mitts were located and the second dive was much better. There is a lot of life on these wrecks, including resident lump sucker fish. One eerie thing that happened on my first dive was finding the remains of a lifeboat, and the builder’s plaque: Harland + Wolff! The area has plenty more to offer, and St John’s is only a five hour flight away from Heathrow. The cost of living is also very cheap. For more information on diving there go to: www.oceanquestcharters.com
The Keldysh at St. John’s, Newfoundland. Photo © Rory Golden
July 31st 2005
At lunchtime on Sunday 31st, we made our way to St. John’s harbour where we loaded the 8metre RIB on the aft deck of Keldysh, and stowed all our dive gear, much to the amusement of the Russians. It was good to see familiar faces, and even better to be recognised by them. Names came back to me over the next few hours, Anatoly, chief scientist, pilot, and designer of the MIRs, Nadia his lovely wife, the other MIR pilots, Victor and Jenna, then Olga, Sergei, Vladimir, Lyudmila, and more. Later that afternoon everyone else had arrived from Florida with camera crews and by evening we had all settled on board and sailed out of St John’s into the night.
Thirty six hours later we were on site. Mike had been rolling his cameras non stop since we had arrived in Newfoundland, and had been having a few difficulties in getting exact clearances as to what he could actually film on board Keldysh. The American film crew were concerned that he could pre-empt their footage in advance of Sebastian’s record attempt. So guidelines were drawn up, some tempers got a little frayed, and I ended up doing some peacemaking. Mike got some good deals from the Russians who told him that he could have some of their exterior footage from our dive. This happened as a result of his tenacity, perseverance and Ulster stubbornness!
The point wasn’t lost on our colonial cousins that there were two men on board from both parts of the island of Ireland. It didn’t help their uneasiness that every now and then I would walk away from Mike proclaiming to all that he was oppressing me. He in turn would announce that I was just a whining Free Stater. And so it continued over the next week.
August 3rd 2005
Today we spent a lot of time in the North Atlantic diving from the RIB filming the MIRs as they descended into the depths nearly 4,000 metres below us. That was after I had nearly got run down on the surface by MIR 1 as it was making its way to do a face to face photo shot with MIR 2. Nor did it help when I deployed my delayed SMB for a standard 3 minute safety stop and the assumption was made by the Russians that I has descended to 30 metres after agreeing a limit of 10. To them, this meant I was doing emergency decompression. They were not amused, especially Lev, the skipper of the Coresh, the tender for the MIRs and himself a former Soviet Navy diver. Only after showing them my computer readings and when some English tech divers on board confirmed that this was standard practice did they believe me. But no harm was done and a few shots of Black Bush whiskey that night sorted things out.
August 5th 2005. Dive Day.
We lined up for our photos on the aft deck of the Keldysh. Mike was fussing around trying to ensure that he got his camera shots ready, doing his piece to camera, and generally being very organised. A little too serious I thought. So off I went behind the scenes, took the lead weights off a yellow belt, slung it diagonally across my chest, grabbed a brush handle, stuck a woolly hat down over my head and marched up and down behind him, shouting “No Surrender”. The Americans were stunned, Mike was speechless after proclaiming “Oh My God”, and the Russians said things in Russian that got lost in translation. Just as well perhaps. After that things lightened up a little...
L to R: Rory Golden, MIR pilot Anatoly and BBC Northern Ireland’s Mike McKimm. Photo © Rory Golden
After the obligatory photo call, and nearly five years to the day, I found myself once again climbing up the ladder to the hatch on MIR 2. Shoes removed at the top and dropping down in to the confined space, the memories came flooding back. Mike quickly joined me followed by Anatoly. The business of stowing gear, setting up cameras, pre-dive checks, lying down, standing up, taking off clothing as the heat increased, soon put a stop to any thoughts, and before we realised it we were being slung up and over the side of the Keldysh. Once again, I watched as the water levels increased, gradually covering the ports until we were bobbing gently just below the surface.
Launching one of the MIR submersibles. The MIR prepares to descend to the Titanic. Photos © Rory Golden
At 11.00 we started our two and a half hour descent to the bottom. Within ten minutes it’s pitch black outside. At 11.15 we’re at 250 metres. By 11.30 we were at 1000 metres. We still had nearly 3,000 metres to go.
One of the most popular questions I get asked is how do you spend your time while descending to such depths. The reality is that the time goes quite fast, as you become so pre-occupied with getting your gear sorted and looking at the great blackness outside seeking deep mid- water signs of life. But there is time to chat and think, make notes, to write postcards with special seals to mark your dive. “Mike, what side of the sub are you on?” “That would be the port side Rory”. “Anatoly, would you give this to Mike please?” A look of perplexion on Anatoly’s face. Well, we are in a 2 metre diameter sphere, hardly a great distance to stretch.. “Mike, this is for you.” “Oh!” says Mike, “Look, a postcard addressed to: Mike McKimm, BBC, Port Side Bunk, MIR 2, Mid Atlantic. I wonder who this could be from?” We both heard some new Russian words then, but couldn’t quite make them out.
By 13.15 hours, the communications set from the surface control burst in to life. With a stir, Anatoly started throwing switches, turning on the outside lights, pumping ballast tanks and generally getting ready for our imminent landing on the seabed. In the five years since my last dive, the subs had been completely stripped and rebuilt and were now fitted with state of the art navigation aids. Now you can actually plot your descent to the bottom, and take action to ensure you don’t collide with the other MIR, and to ensure you land a safe distance from the wreck.. I started counting off the depth to the sea bed from one of the displays: “30 metres, 20 metres, 15 metres”. A quick glance out the viewport and the muddy bottom comes into sight. “10 metres, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” Touchdown. The time was 13.25. I turned to Mike and said. “Welcome to the bottom of the ocean Mike, you’ve now joined a unique club.” With a “Thank you Rory”, he got busy getting his cameras ready, in preparation for our approach. A further addition to the gear on board is colour sonar. No more pinging your way across the bottom, this time a monitor showed the outline of the bow literally within viewing distance.
Sonar image of Titanic’s bow. Photo © Rory Golden
We lifted off towards the wreck, and within minutes saw the outline. As we started rising upwards, the great bow of the ship became more focussed in the monitors inside, and through the view port I could see that which I never thought I would see again. Still majestic looking, in spite of the increase of rusticles on her, Titanic was there in front of me. With superb piloting, Anataloy held the sub in position, despite the strong current, so that Mike could get his shots. We moved up and over the bow, passing the great spare anchor, Dr. Ballard’s memorial plaque (yes it is still there), the anchor chains, peering down in to the number one hold. The main foremast came into view, and I was shocked. It had collapsed, buckling under its weight, the integrity of the steel gone. It was a very sad image, a precursor of more to come. We moved towards the bridge, and as we approached I could see the plaque from Cobh from five years ago, still looking bright under the lights. Anatoly carefully positioned the sub and after several attempts managed to place both the Belfast City Council and Harland + Wolff plaques on either side of it. A symbolic moment, and a circle completed. We then moved on to continue our visit. As we hovered over the Marconi radio room there was more and more evidence of accelerated deterioration. Several holes had appeared in the roof, and, in fact, the aperture where the skylight was had grown bigger. The inside of the radio room is becoming more exposed, and is in danger of being lost under its own debris.
One of the MIRs illuminates the boat deck. Photo © Rory Golden
As we moved along the Boat Deck, the sides of the structure looked like someone had peppered it with artillery fire, and almost the entire deck alongside the gymnasium has collapsed. We gingerly moved over to the void that was the Grand Staircase. Looking downwards, it was hard to imagine the beauty that once was here, in the middle of the chaos. As we lifted, a sudden surge of current caught us unawares and the sub started to rotate. Anatoly quickly got us back under control, but he was momentarily disorientated, and took several minutes to relocate the wreck as he ascended out of danger. A brief scary moment, but not the only one. Below the Boat Deck, as we moved alongside A deck, the window screens are all falling downwards, pulling the brass window frames with them. We hovered here for a while, filming away, when once again we started rotating and started dropping to the bottom unexpectedly. Nervous glances between Mike and myself. “Anatoly, is there a problem?” “Possibly”, came the unexpected reply. The standard Russian answer to everything is usually “Niet problem”. This was a first. Mike looked worried, I was resigned. There’s not much you can do at this depth. “I cannot get the side rotors to work, I do not know what is wrong,” Anatoly explained. Meanwhile we were dropping down the side of the wreck. Mike came out with a classic: “We’re dropping to the bottom of the ocean!” To which I replied, “Mike, we ARE at the bottom of the ocean!!” Nervous laughter broke the tension, and then Anatoly shouted, “Ah! I see!”. Lifting a cushion, he discovered that he had knocked off the power switch to the side rotors. With a quick flick, power was restored and MIR 2 was back under control.
One of the ship’s engines. |
The main mast showing lookout access door. |
The Belfast plaque being placed on the bridge. |
Signs of life in the debris field. |
Rusticles adorn the winches. |
A few more passes and we were back over the upper section of the bow, again and again seeing vast areas of decay. The steel eating organisms are weakening the integrity of the ship, and this is causing the lighter sections to collapse under their own weight. Where once you had to strain your head to see inside Captain Smith’s cabin and his bath, now you can look straight in at it and its fittings. (Yes, it’s still full of water…)
Travelling across the area between the bow and the stern, we come across debris and coal. Yet in the midst of all this we have witnessed life at this great depth. Soft fan corals, starfish, crabs, rat tail fish, life is flourishing down here. As we approach the stern section, we see great areas of tangled steel, no recognisable form, just a jumble. This section of the ship crash landed here and massive damage was caused. The huge engines loom out of the dark, over 10 metres high. As we examine one, and the move to the second, we bump in to something on the way. This is a scary place to be.
After eight hours our time is coming to an end, we move away from the stern section to begin our ascent. My last image of Titanic as we slowly lift off is of an upturned section of the hull, with a mesh grid showing. Then, darkness takes over, and we wind down for the damp and cold journey back..
Two hours later we break the surface, get hoisted on board, and meet the welcoming committee. The time is 9.30 and we were underwater for 10 hours. Mike got some great shots, and ended up with an excellent documentary, “A Journey to Remember” which was first broadcast on BBC last October. I got some great new memories, renewed some old ones, yet we both realise that Titanic is in a sad state. It is estimated by scientists that within 20 –30 years her main form will have disappeared. The world has learnt a lot about deep ocean exploration thanks to expeditions such as this, and scientists continue to make new discoveries. Titanic’s artefacts travel the world giving great enjoyment to all that see them. I have memories to last me a lifetime that I can share with many.
Will I ever go back?
I probably don’t know the answer to that.
I was wrong once before.
© Rory Golden 2006
