How Low Can You Sink?

MIKE REISS takes a submersible to the RMS Titanic.

[Today I awoke to the news that a submersible carrying tourists to the wreckage of the Titanic has gone missing. Bystander’s Intrepid Traveler MIKE REISS took this very same craft, and wrote about it for us. With hopes that everyone is safe—and the knowledge that laughter is sometimes found on the edge of real danger—Mike’s excellent article is reprinted below.—MG]

Our Intrepid Traveler 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, two and a half miles straight down. [Photo © Denise Reiss.]

My wife and I like danger.  And by “my wife and I,” I mean just my wife, not me, not even a little.  People know this about us, so my friend Jay called with an invitation: “You guys wanna come to a party tonight? There’s a good chance you will be killed.”

This was not some cute murder mystery dinner party—this was the real thing.  They were having a cocktail reception for Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy.  He was a marked man.  We were excited until Jay added, “While you’re at the party, I advise you not to eat or drink anything.” This might have been a deal-breaker: I don’t mind getting shot or blown up, but I go to a party to eat.      

Another friend told us about a guy who took passengers on deep dives in his home-made submarines. This sounded like a good way to get killed, so my wife asked for the man’s name.  It was Stockton Rush. 

They say name is destiny. Martin Short really is short.  Fats Domino was pretty fat. And Cedric the Entertainer…looks like a Cedric. So when your name is Stockton Rush, you are fated to a life of adventure. Mr. Rush is as handsome and suave as a soap opera doctor. He’d had every career an eight year-old boy could dream of: airline pilot, rocket scientist, inventor and now submarine captain.

Our voyages with Captain Rush started small and grew, well, titanic. Our first trip left from an exotic port off a mysterious island known as…Staten. A hundred miles off Staten Island is Hudson Canyon, an underwater chasm the size of the Grand Canyon. We were going to dive it, in Rush’s home-made sub. It was gleaming white and stream-lined, like a Star Wars TIE Fighter or a high-end vape pen. The viewport was a giant acrylic eyeball, surrounded by spotlights and lasers. A towboat pulled the submarine, bobbing and bouncing as we headed out to sea. 

The most dangerous part of riding this sub, the bit no one put a lot of thought into, was getting in the damn thing. They simply leaned a six-foot kitchen ladder against the floating submarine. You had to scramble up the ladder as it bobbed with the waves, leap over to a tiny entry hatch on top, then plunge blindly into the sub, dropping six feet into darkness.  

Once you were in, it was groovy: cool, dimly lit, quiet. The sub’s interior was about the same as a mini-van; it would seat five, if there were seats. Instead, five of us spread out on the carpeted floor: pilot, co-pilot, my wife, myself, and one other rich stupid tourist with a death wish. We sank noiselessly, peacefully to the bottom of the sea. One thousand feet down, the ocean floor looked like the landscape from a Road Runner cartoon: miles of sand, oddly shaped rocks, and the occasional coral branching out like a saguaro cactus. It was amazing.

It was only after we returned that they told us we were the first people ever to go down there! I was the Neil Armstrong of Hudson Canyon. This would be great, except I don’t want to be the Neil Armstrong of anything! I want to be the Harrison Schmitt—the twelfth and final man on the moon. He didn’t go up till they got all the kinks out.

But Stockton Rush was emboldened by this success, and he wanted to go somewhere deeper. Twelve times deeper.  He wanted to take a sub to the Titanic, two and a half miles down. And my wife wanted us to go with him.