This is our series of supplemental logs that were taken from our scientific research expedition to RMS Titanic earlier last month. I hope that you enjoy!
Since we were staggered about 30 minutes from MIR I's launch, we entered MIR II at 10:00 am and hit the water at 10:16 am. The outside air temperature is 80 degrees Fahrenheit and once our pilot, Genya Cherniev, sealed the MIR, the temperature inside the MIR was 92 degrees F. The MIR support staff is excellent and very efficient. Once we hit the water, the cowboys in the zodiac disconnected us from the Keldysh crane and attached us to the Koresh for moving us in position to dive down to Titanic. During this period, the MIR is subjected to the motion of the surface waves and it could resemble being in an amusement park ride. Once we were clear of Keldysh, the cowboys disconnected our tether to Koresh and we started are descent to Titanic. Just prior to the beginning of our descent, the temperature in the MIR climbed to 96 degrees F. It is a good thing that I dressed in layers and I had already peeled down into the innermost polypropylene thermal layer. As Genya turns on the submersible ballast tanks to take in sea water, the additional weight of this water started our long voyage to the bottom of the ocean.
As we descend, the visible ambient surface light is lost very rapidly. Ambient light turns to a dark purple at 460 feet and turns pitch black at 600 feet. There is a slight current that is pushing us to the north-north-east and surface water temperature is about 68 degrees. The rate of descent is approximately 100 feet per minute and we will have about 2 hours and 15 minutes of descent time down to the ocean bottom at 12, 600 feet. Periodically, I have asked Genya to turn on our external lights so that I can observe some of the deep water sea life as we go through the many thousands of feet of water. The most prevalent sea life that we observe on our journey is plankton and other white particulate matter. Additionally, we observed several different species of shrimp, small fish and microbial matter as we transcend through the water column.
By the time we reached 500 meters depth, the temperature within the MIR was around 90 degrees F but the external temperature in the seas has gone from 20 degrees C down to 4.2 degrees C. At 12:19 pm, we finally reached the ocean floor at 3890 meters, the internal MIR temperature slipped to 69 degrees F and the external water temperature was 2.35 degrees C. Looking at the submersible's sonar as we pinged for Titanic revealed that we were only about 400 meters away from the bow. Looking at this sonar image was awesome as the huge pointed nose of Titanic loomed head. At 12:34 pm we got our first glimpse of this once-proud ocean liner, as it appears from the darkness of the deep ocean. It was like greeting an old friend!
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