undersea tourism

Friday, 12 April, 2024

Why underwater and deep-sea tourism are increasingly popular

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Margarida is a Travel Tomorrow reporter and press and communications assistant at Buscardini Communications. She studied Communication Sciences and Journalism at the NOVA University of Lisbon (FCSH) with an Erasmus semester in European Studies at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. After an internship at the Communication department of the Municipal Council of Cascais, life took her to Boston, Massachusetts. In the United States, she worked for the Consulate of Portugal in New Bedford for the past 4 years.  Margarida loves traveling, snowboarding and attending live music. A big fan of humor and in a serious relationship with food.

In recent years, a remarkable shift has occurred in the world of tourism as a new frontier captures the imagination of adventurers and nature enthusiasts alike. The mesmerizing allure of underwater and deep-sea tourism has seen a surge in popularity, drawing in throngs of intrepid travelers seeking to explore the hidden wonders beneath the ocean’s surface. From the world’s first underwater hotels and restaurants to submersible rides and deep-sea exploration tours, the appeal of venturing into uncharted territory beneath the waves has attracted adventurers seeking unique experiences, although some safety concerns have emerged.

In this article, we delve into the factors that have propelled this form of tourism into the limelight.

1. Human fascination for the unkown

The human fascination with the unknown has long driven explorers to set sail for uncharted territories. Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas”, dating back to 1869, captures mankind’s enduring fascination with the depths of the ocean – the curiosity about the mysteries and wonders that lie beneath. The depths of the oceans, with their vast expanses and enigmatic mysteries, present a frontier that continues to captivate the human imagination. For many, underwater and deep-sea tourism provides an opportunity to embark on a thrilling adventure unlike any other.

The chance to swim alongside magnificent creatures like dolphins, manta rays, and whale sharks, to witness the ethereal beauty of bioluminescent organisms illuminating the depths, holds an undeniable allure. While some explorers seek to uncover hidden shipwrecks laden with history and mystery, or even attend an underwater art gallery, other divers yearn to immerse themselves in the tranquil serenity of coral gardens that form vibrant underwater ecosystems. It satisfies our human curiosity, pushes the boundaries of our comfort zones, and allows us to connect with a realm that remains largely unexplored.

More recently, television programs, documentaries, and films showcasing the wonders of the deep have contributed significantly to the surge in popularity of underwater and deep-sea tourism. Productions such as BBC’s “Blue Planet” series, and the mesmerizing cinematography of movies like “Finding Nemo”, “My Octopus Teacher” or the latest “Avatar: The Way of Water” have served as catalysts for piquing public curiosity and fostering an appreciation for the underwater realm.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by BBC Earth (@bbcearth)

The internet and social media platforms have also played a pivotal role in spreading the allure of underwater and deep-sea tourism. Breathtaking images and videos shared by divers and enthusiasts have inspired millions, creating a virtual community that drives the desire to experience the beauty of the underwater world firsthand.

2. Technological advancements and accessibility

The primary catalyst behind the exponential growth of underwater and deep-sea tourism must be the remarkable advancement in technology. While underwater tourism is not a new concept, recent developments in diving equipment, submersibles, and underwater vessels have made it accessible, and more attractive, to a broader audience.

In the past, scuba diving was the primary means of exploring underwater realms, requiring specialized training and certification. Specialized gear, such as full-face snorkel masks and easy-to-use diving apparatus, has made it easier for novices to experience the underwater world without extensive training.

While submarines were initially designed for military and scientific purposes, they have now broadened to the tourism category. Underwater tour companies, like Seawalker on Green Island in the Great Barrier Reef, have emerged, giving divers and non-divers alike the possibility to venture underwater. The experience involves donning a large glass helmet and wearing a protective suit that allow individuals to walk on the ocean floor while connected to a breathing apparatus that lets divers breathe very much like on land.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Seawalker Conservation Sanur (@seawalkersanur)

Submersible rides, like larger submarines and luxurious private subs, have individual viewing domes and a capacity to accommodate large groups of tourists. However, due to their high costs, these experiences often remain accessible only to the wealthy. For instance, the Deepflight is a submersible experience that commands a price of $1,500 for a one-hour expedition for a couple. Lovers Deep, a lavish submarine hotel that takes tourists on a tour of the reefs surrounding St Lucia, boasting its own private chef and butler, requires a staggering starting rate of $150,000 per night.

Dr. Hayley Stainton, a UK-based tourism academic and author at Tourism Teacher, acknowledges the evocative appeal of underwater tourism but underscores the stark reality of its limited availability and high costs. On the other hand, Patricia Rodiles Martinez, the Institutional Development & PR Manager of Les Roches, who organized the first Space and Underwater Tourism Universal Summit in 2019, holds a different perspective, saying that the costs of such experiences will tend to come down as demand increases. “This is what happened with the first airplanes, cruises and hotels”, Martinez points out.

In 2022, OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush, expressed his vision of making deep-sea exploration commercially accessible while establishing diving to the Titanic wreck site as a coveted experience. But with a $250,000 price tag , that’s seems far from happening.

They are also very expensive. I do think that there is a market for underwater tourism. I just believe that it will be limited to the wealthy and the few. Dr Hayley Stainton, author at Tourism Teacher

More questions arise after the tragic implosion of the Titan

Moreover, the recent incident with the 23,000 pound submersibleTitan, which imploded soon after diving , serves as a stark reminder of the inherent dangers associated with deep-sea tourism. The challenges of navigating extreme depths, unpredictable underwater conditions, and the potential for technical malfunctions pose a serious threat to the safety of passengers and crew. The incident involving the Titan highlights the critical importance of stringent safety measures, comprehensive training for crew members, and thorough maintenance protocols to mitigate the risks and ensure the well-being of all those involved in these expeditions.

3. Environmental awareness and education

The allure of underwater tourism goes beyond the thrill of exploration. Many of these ventures contribute to environmental education and conservation efforts. With increasing awareness about the fragile ecosystems beneath the waves, people are now seeking ways to appreciate marine life while minimizing their impact on the environment. As a result, sustainable and eco-friendly practices have become a key focus for tour operators and travelers alike.

Underwater projects are joining forces with conservationists and marine biologists to create immersive and educational travel experiences, intending to promote understanding of the challenges that our oceans and their environments are confronting. Dive centers and research facilities, particularly those in the Great Barrier Reef, are not only showcasing the beauty of these underwater ecosystems but also highlighting the challenges they face, such as coral bleaching, plastic waste, and reef destruction. By providing visitors with enjoyable experiences intertwined with vital knowledge, these initiatives aim to foster a deeper understanding of marine conservation.

Together with @UTS_Science and five local tourism operators we’ve already planted the first 5,000 healthy corals on reefs off Cairns and Port Douglas to fast-track their recovery from the effects of climate change. https://t.co/UpXdAjeDtB @envirogov #ReefTrust @DavidJSuggett — Great Barrier Reef Foundation (@GBRFoundation) March 22, 2021

Programs that push for the empowering of citizens also play a significant role in engaging travelers and volunteers in the protection of the marine environment. They encourage individuals to contribute critical data for research and spread the responsibility of protecting our underwater world among the wider community.

Thus, underwater tourism offers an opportunity for travelers to experience and comprehend the power and fragility of our changing planet, similar to other expeditions to remote and delicate ecosystems, such as Amazon and the Arctic. They have the potential to educate participants about the urgent need to preserve and protect our oceans. Even OceanGate, through its “mission specialists,” aimed at empowering paying customers to contribute as citizen scientists by capturing images and videos of the deep-sea’s diverse biodiversity during their descent to the wreck site at a depth of 3,800 meters.

While underwater tourism may currently be a realm for the privileged, its potential to inspire environmental consciousness cannot be overlooked. However, as the industry evolves and demand grows, responsible management by local governments and tour operators is crucial to ensure the preservation of these underwater sites and their natural habitats. Striking the right balance between attracting visitors and safeguarding the environment is essential to sustain these unique and educational experiences for generations to come.

To ensure it, it is vital to closely monitor and enforce strict guidelines for tour boats, walkways, and excursions. Even well-intentioned scuba divers can unintentionally cause harm to the very sites they have come to enjoy. Recognizing this, organizations like UNESCO emphasize the importance of providing education and enabling local authorities and communities to take charge of infrastructure advancements, establish efficient surveillance mechanisms, and enforce strict regulations at the local level.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Green Fins (@green_fins)

The Green Fins initiative serves as an example of a successful implementation of such necessities. Aiming to educate and involve local businesses in the protection of underwater ecosystems, they have compiled internationally approved guidelines that promote sustainable diving and snorkeling practices at an international scale. These guidelines have been embraced by 11 countries and nearly 600 marine tourism companies since its establishment in 2004.

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Deep Dive: Unraveling the Secrets of Underwater Tourism and Submersible Exploration

Delve into the unseen wonders of the ocean with our comprehensive guide to underwater tourism and submersible exploration. Discover the allure, risks, and ethical concerns of venturing into the depths. Dive in now! 🐟🐟

1. Dive into the Depths: Exploring Submersible Exploration & Tourism

Under the Sea Submersible tourism is about exploring underwater using special vehicles that can go beneath the waves. These vessels, called submersibles, are designed for all sorts of things, like research, exploration, and even treasure hunting. They can dive down with or without people inside.

These underwater crafts are pretty versatile and have uses in different industries, from business to science. They’ve been around for a while, making waves in tourism since the ’80s. Nowadays, you can spot them in lots of places worldwide, especially in beautiful spots like Hawaii or the Caribbean . They take tourists on trips under the sea , giving them a peek at colorful fish and amazing coral reefs . It’s like a scenic adventure below the waves! 🌊✨

2. Diving Deep: Exploring the Rise of Underwater Tourism

Deep-sea and underwater tourism are getting more popular because they offer something unique: exploring places under the sea that haven’t been widely explored. You know, the ocean covers more than 70% of our planet, and these days, people are curious to see what’s down there.

There are cool things popping up, like the first underwater hotel in the Maldives or the biggest underwater restaurant in Norway. These places are attracting fancy travelers who want to see the ocean’s secrets without needing special training. 🏊🏊

But there’s a flip side too. Sometimes, these adventures come with risks like that recent missing tourist submersible trying to explore the Titanic wreck indeed.

2-1. Exploring the Unseen Depths: The Enduring Charm of Underwater Adventures

Since ancient times, humanity’s fascination with the unknown has been a driving force, beckoning explorers to sail into uncharted territories. Jules Verne’s 1869 classic, “ Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas ,” encapsulates this enduring captivation with the ocean’s depths—an unending curiosity about the mysteries hidden beneath the waves.

The deep oceans, with their expansive and enigmatic realms, continue to lure us, offering an unexplored frontier that fires the imagination. For many, diving into the world of underwater and deep-sea tourism isn’t just a vacation—it’s an exhilarating adventure, unlike any other.

Imagine swimming alongside majestic creatures like dolphins, manta rays, or whale sharks—witnessing the ethereal glow of bioluminescent organisms in the ocean’s darkness—an irresistible pull. Some adventurers seek out sunken shipwrecks steeped in history, while others prefer exploring underwater art galleries or immersing themselves in serene coral gardens. It’s a quest to satisfy our innate curiosity, push our boundaries, and connect with the largely uncharted underwater world.

In recent years, television shows, documentaries, and cinematic masterpieces like “ Blue Planet ,” “ Finding Nemo ,” “ My Octopus Teacher ,” and the upcoming “ Avatar: The Way of Water ” have magnified public interest in the ocean’s marvels, fostering an appreciation for its unexplored beauty. Social media platforms have also played a crucial role, sharing breathtaking images and videos from divers worldwide, inspiring millions and fostering a community eager to experience the underwater realm firsthand. 💙✨

2-2. Tech Brings the Underwater World Closer: Accessible Adventures Below

The growth of underwater and deep-sea tourism owes a lot to new tech! Before, exploring underwater needed scuba diving skills, but now, thanks to cool gear and gadgets, it’s way easier for everyone to dive in.

Remember when scuba diving needed a lot of training? Now, gear like full-face snorkel masks and simple diving tools make it a snap for newbies to explore underwater without tons of practice. Submarines weren’t always for fun trips. They were mostly for science and military stuff.

But today, they’re for tourists too! Take Seawalker on Green Island. They offer this awesome experience where you wear a special helmet and suit to walk on the ocean floor. You still breathe like on land, connected to a special gear. It’s a whole new way to explore the underwater world, no diving skills required!

Riding in submersibles, whether big submarines or fancy private ones, is cool! They’ve got these domes for looking out and can fit lots of people. But, because they cost a lot, mostly rich folks get to go on these trips. For example, Deepflight, one of these submersibles, charges $1,500 for an hour ride for a couple! Then there’s Lovers Deep, a super posh hotel submarine in St Lucia. It’s got a private chef and butler, but it’ll set you back a jaw-dropping $150,000 per night. 💸

Dr. Hayley Stainton, who knows a lot about tourism, says that going underwater is awesome but it’s pricey and not everyone can afford it. Patricia Rodiles Martinez from Les Roches , who organized a big summit about underwater tourism, thinks differently. She believes that as more people want these experiences, the prices will drop. It’s just like what happened with planes, cruises, and hotels in the past! 🏨 🌊

2-3. Exploring the Underwater World: Learning and Protecting

Underwater trips aren’t just about adventure; they’re also teaching us about our oceans. People are more aware of how delicate our underwater ecosystems are, so now, tour operators and travelers are focusing on being eco-friendly. They’re teaming up with scientists and conservationists to make these trips educational.

Places like the Great Barrier Reef aren’t just showing off their beauty; they’re also talking about the problems like coral bleaching and plastic waste. By mixing fun with knowledge, they’re trying to make us care more about saving our oceans. There are programs getting regular folks involved too. They ask people to help with research, making everyone responsible for our underwater world.

These trips aren’t just for fun- they’re like field trips to learn about our changing planet. Even companies like OceanGate let paying customers be part of the science by taking pictures and videos while diving down to a shipwreck. 🎥

But to keep these places safe, governments and tour guides need to make sure tourists don’t harm the sites. It’s a balance between letting people visit and keeping the environment safe. Organizations like UNESCO stress the need for education and local communities to take charge of looking after these places.

3. How Deep Underwater Can a Human Really Travel?

3-1.How Far Underwater Can People Go

So, how deep can we actually dive underwater? The deepest any person’s ever gone is about 35,858 feet down into the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot on Earth. To get there, you’d need to hit the Challenger Deep, a part of the trench. But to be honest, you’ll need a bit more than just swimming gear – like a submarine! Two daring missions made it down there.

Back in 1960, Lt. Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard took a 5-hour ride in a tiny sub and spent 20 minutes at the bottom. Then, in 2012, James Cameron, the movie director, did it too, but he was quicker in his high-tech sub called the Deepsea Challenger. He gathered some data but no lost keys! Now, without a fancy sub, it’s a bit blurry. The French divers from Comex officially hold the record at 1,752 feet . Some say the U.S. Navy might have gone deeper, but it’s all hush-hush, “classified” stuff. 🤿

3-2. Submarines: How Deep Can They Really Dive?

Submarines are like underwater cars, built to keep people safe from the pressure. They can usually go down to about 300 meters deep . Just to give you an idea, the deepest spot in the Pacific Ocean , the Mariana Trench , is a whopping 11,000 meters deep ! That’s way deeper than submarines can handle. 🐬

4. The Deep Sea Dilemma: Is Tourism to the Ocean’s Depths Ethical?

Deep sea tourism has become a hot topic lately, especially after the recent disappearance of the Titan submersible during a dive to the Titanic wreckage. The discovery of its remains on the ocean floor has raised questions about the safety and ethics of exploring the deep sea.

The deep sea tourism industry, which caters to both researchers and the ultra-wealthy, has been making frequent trips to iconic sites like the Titanic. With a hefty price tag of $250,000 and an eight-hour journey, safety concerns have been on the rise . The recent incident with OceanGate’s Titan has brought attention to the lack of independent assessments and potential risks associated with these expeditions . ⚠️

Beyond safety, experts worry about the impact on the Titanic wreckage. Increased visits have accelerated the ship’s deterioration, with visitors leaving behind trash and causing unintended damage. The debate rages on: Is it responsible for companies to lead private expeditions to the Titanic, or does the risk outweigh the potential benefits for ocean education and scientific innovation? The answer remains unclear . 🤔

5. FAQs on submersible tourism and underwater exploration

Q: What exactly is submersible tourism?

A: Submersible tourism revolves around using specially designed vessels, known as submersibles, to explore underwater realms . These crafts are built for various purposes, including research, exploration, and sometimes even treasure hunting. They’re capable of submerging beneath the waves, whether with or without passengers on board.

Q: Is submersible tourism a new thing?

A: Not exactly! Submersibles have been around since the mid-’80s , initially serving primarily in research and scientific domains. However, their utilization in tourism has seen a surge in recent years, attracting tourists to various scenic locations worldwide.

Q: Where can I experience submersible tourism?

A: Submersible experiences can be found in multiple places globally, particularly in picturesque areas like Hawaii or the Caribbean . These underwater trips often offer glimpses of vibrant marine life and stunning coral reefs.

Q: Are there any technological advancements driving the growth of underwater tourism?

A: Yes, indeed! Advancements in diving equipment, submersibles, and underwater vessels have made underwater exploration more accessible to a wider audience. Specialized gear like full-face snorkel masks and user-friendly diving apparatus have simplified the experience for novices.

Q: How deep can submarines go?

A: Submarines can typically dive to depths of around 300 meters. However, when you compare this to the deepest point in the ocean—the Mariana Trench, which reaches 11,000 meters—it’s just a fraction of what’s possible.

Q: What are the ethical concerns related to deep-sea tourism?

A: Deep-sea tourism has faced scrutiny regarding its safety, environmental impact, and ethical considerations. Recent incidents, like the disappearance of a submersible exploring the Titanic wreck, have raised questions about the risks involved in these adventures.

Q: How can deep-sea tourism contribute positively?

A: Despite concerns, these trips offer educational experiences about our oceans. They encourage conservation efforts and foster awareness about preserving delicate marine ecosystems. Additionally, they have the potential to spur scientific innovation.

Q: What measures are taken to ensure environmental conservation during these underwater trips?

A: To minimize environmental impact, tour operators and travelers are increasingly focusing on sustainable practices. Many underwater ventures collaborate with scientists and conservationists to educate visitors about marine conservation and the challenges faced by underwater ecosystems.

Q: How safe are these underwater adventures?

A: Safety measures vary among operators, but concerns have been raised regarding safety protocols, especially when engaging in deeper dives or exploring delicate underwater sites .

Q: Are submersible tourism experiences affordable for everyone?

A: Unfortunately, these adventures often come with a high price tag, limiting accessibility primarily to affluent travelers due to the substantial costs involved in operating and maintaining submersibles. Feel free to ask more questions or dive deeper into any specific aspect of submersible tourism and underwater exploration!

In conclusion, submersible tourism offers a captivating and unique opportunity to explore the hidden wonders beneath our oceans. From vibrant marine life to stunning coral reefs, these underwater adventures promise thrilling experiences. However, while they present an exciting frontier for exploration and education, there are concerns regarding safety, environmental impact, and accessibility . ⚠️

As the industry evolves, balancing the allure of underwater exploration with responsible conservation practices becomes increasingly crucial. Nurturing a deeper understanding of our oceans’ fragility and promoting sustainable tourism practices will be essential to ensure that these underwater marvels remain preserved and accessible for future generations to discover and appreciate. The journey into the depths is undeniably alluring, but it must also be guided by a commitment to protect and conserve our underwater world.

▶️ Back to @ thefreelog .

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16 Incredible Underwater Places Around the World

By Caitlin Morton

Orda Cave, Perm Krai, Russia

The Orda Cave is the longest cave in Russia and the longest cave made of the mineral gypsum in the world, extending for more than three miles. Above ground, it looks like an unremarkable grassy hill; but below the earth you'll find clear water and white, cathedral-like walls, which make up passages that divers are welcome to explore.

Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai

Atlantis is a five-star hotel located on The Palm, Dubai's man-made island. The hotel is known for its aquatic attractions, like waterpark, aquarium (filled with 65,000 marine inhabitants), and Signature Underwater Suites. Stay in the latter to fall asleep to sharks, angel fish, and stingrays floating by your floor-to-ceiling windows.

Ginnie Springs, Florida

Ginnie Springs stands apart from Florida's wealth of freshwater caves for both its accessibility and its crystal-clear water , which looks particularly lovely when sunshine filters through the entrance. The best part? No extra training is needed to explore the 100-foot-wide cavern in the springs—it’s been deemed safe enough for open-water certified scuba divers to enter.

Underwater Post Office, Vanuatu

The Underwater Post Office is a fully functioning operation (the only of its kind in the world) located in about ten feet of water off of Vanuatu's Hideaway Island Resort and Marine Sanctuary. People are able to don snorkeling gear, swim down to the fiberglass booth, and mail waterproof postcards to their loved ones—and pose for a fun vacation photo, of course.

Zahra Hankir

Levi Mandel

Hannah Towey

Charlie Hobbs

Shipwreck of the Sweepstakes , Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada

There are more than 6,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, most of which have never been accessed by people. But there are some wrecks visible in shallower waters, including the schooner Sweepstakes , located in Lake Huron's Big Tub Harbour in Fathom Five National Marine Park. The boat sank about 50 yards from the shore in September 1885 and has remained surprisingly intact ever since, making it a popular attraction for divers and tourists.

Silfra fissure, Thingvellir National Park, Iceland

Iceland's Silfra fissure offers adventurers something that no other diving spot in the world can—the chance to swim between two continental plates. The crack between the Eurasian and North American plates widens about two centimeters each year, and divers and snorkelers can enjoy the impressive water visibility, bright green algae, and sheer geological uniqueness—no matter the time of year.

Christ of the Abyss, San Fruttuoso, Italy

Although there are several versions of the same Jesus statue scattered around the ocean floor ( including Key Largo , pictured), the original version is located in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of San Fruttuoso. The eight-foot-tall likeness was created by sculptor Guido Galletti and commissioned by Italian diver Duilio Marcante in 1954. Marcante wanted to place some sort of memorial at the exact spot where his friend Dario Gonzatti died while diving a few years prior. And thus, Christ of the Abyss was born.

Ithaa Undersea Restaurant, the Maldives

Ithaa boasts the title of the world's first all-glass undersea restaurant, located 16 feet below sea level at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island hotel. Ithaa serves caviar and Maldivian lobster—just a couple of the menu items to be enjoyed while taking in the 180-degree panoramic views of the water above you. And as if the setting isn't enough, the 14-guest seating limit and $320 bill takes the luxe factor up several notches.

Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA), Cancún, Mexico

This enchanting underwater museum between Cancún and Isla Mujeres features more than 400 permanent life-size sculptures on the ocean floor, each designed to promote coral and marine life. Visitors reach the museum via boat and snorkel above the sculptures, which range from groups of people to a Volkswagen coated with seaweed.

The Great Blue Hole, Belize

Located about 60 miles off the coast of Belize, the Lighthouse Reef boasts beautiful coral and shallow turquoise waters…oh, and a vertical drop that's more than 400 feet deep. Known as the Great Blue Hole, this 1,000-foot-wide, perfectly circular sinkhole sits smack in the middle of the atoll. The limestone shelf surrounding the vertical cave is about 40 feet below the surface, and then it’s a straight jump down into the unknown . The further down adventurous divers go, the clearer and more beautiful the rock formations supposedly become.

The Underwater Room, Manta Resort, Zanzibar

In 2013, the Manta Resort on Pemba Island, Zanzibar opened a three-level hotel room submerged four meters under the sea. Guests who stay in the floating room get a 360-degree view of the surrounding ocean, coral, and sea life. The views get even more incredible at night, when more species like squid and octopus make rare appearances.

Underwater Museum at Cape Tarkhankut, Ukraine

Once the U.S.S.R. fell, diver Vladimir Borumensky collected thousands of discarded busts and figures of erstwhile Communist icons—including Lenin, Stalin, and Marx—and turned them into a subaquatic "Alley of Leaders." Over the past 20 years, it's grown to include more than 50 sculptures, from Paris's Eiffel Tower to London's Tower Bridge. — Sarah Bruning

Dos Ojos (Two Eyes), Tulum, Mexico

This cavernous cenote with double entry points—hence the moniker "Two Eyes"—is so incredible it was featured in the IMAX film Journey Into Amazing Caves and an episode of BBC's Planet Earth . It's perfect for snorkelers and experienced scuba divers.

Grenada Underwater Sculpture Park, St. George's, Grenada

Globetrotting artist and photographer Jason deCaires Taylor (pictured) crafted 65 concrete-and-rebar figures—a combination of human forms and still lifes—anchored beneath Moliniere Bay. A snorkeling tour through the marine area allows travelers to get a fish’s-eye view of the works. — Sarah Bruning

The Green Lake, Tragoess, Austria

During the fall and winter, Austria’s Green Lake is a small but scenic body of water surrounded by popular hiking trails . But when the snow on the bordering mountains begins to melt in the spring, the run-off causes the lake’s water levels to rise. By June, the nearby park becomes completely submerged, making for one of the most unusual diving experiences in the world.

USAT Liberty , Bali, Indonesia

Hit by a Japanese torpedo during WWII, this supply ship was stranded on the beach, only to be pushed back into the water by the magma from a 1963 volcano eruption. The shallow area of the wreck lies only 13 feet underwater, making it easy for snorkelers —not just divers—to access.

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Underwater Travel Is A New Way To Explore The World

Underwater travel might sound like something from a fantasy novel, but it's real - and easier to do than you think.

Traversing the sea is nothing new to explorers, and it's also nothing new to the world of travel. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that underwater tourism is gaining in popularity and gaining quite the reputation with adventurous travelers. In fact, it's even being called the next big trend to hit the tourism circuit.

Modern advances in scuba diving as well as an increased interest in snorkeling and free diving has piqued the attention of many. Those wishing to see all exotic beauty the ocean holds are not required to be professionals anymore - they're simply required to pay attention, follow directions, and appreciate all they're about to see.

The Future Of Underwater Tourism

Snorkeling the reefs and swimming with sharks and exotic fish are only one aspect of underwater tourism. There's an entire world down there just waiting to be discovered (literally... we haven't even reached its deepest parts yet) and there's more to see than anyone could experience in one lifetime.

Not only does every ocean, bay, sea, and lake offer unique insight into an underwater ecosystem, but there are different means to experience these, as well. Snorkeling and scuba will always be two of the most popular underwater exploration methods, but submersibles are also popular at common tourist spots.

These eco-safe vehicles propel tourists underwater, allowing them to experience everything first-hand, without ever getting out and into the ocean. For those who would rather experience it without a submersible mini-sub, experiences such as Seawalker, on Green Island, Australia, allow tourists to submerge themselves in an airtight suit, complete with a glass helmet and an airflow tube, connected to an oxygen source above the water.

Related:  15 USA Cities That Will Be Underwater By 2050 (10 Already On The Ocean Floor)

Underwater Hotels And Experiences

Looking to really up the underwater game? The Maldives is well-known for its fully-submersed hotel , allowing guests to sleep, quite literally, underwater.

Norway recently opened an underwater restaurant as well, encouraging guests to dine with marine life as it swims by massive windows. Underwater museums and galleries are also coming to life, providing guests with a unique way to experience aquatic life as well as an intriguing underwater environment.

If an underwater post office exists and is fully-functioning , then there's no reason why an underwater museum isn't worth visiting! These experiences are unique to each person, becoming more and more popular for solo travelers as well as though in small groups.

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Understanding A Delicate Ecosystem And How To Explore It, Respectfully

The only downfall of explosive interest in underwater tourism is how it can negatively impact the ecosystem.

While it's a wonderful chance for tourists to learn and experience all the ocean has to offer, it can also be tough on marine life - such as coral reefs, which have seen destructive bleaching - and cause a major disturbance to delicate environments. In order to prevent this from happening even further, an education of sorts must be carried out to each and everyone who seeks out underwater tourism.

It's not enough to be respectful of one's surroundings, but one must also understand that what exists underwater follows a unique set of Mother Nature's rules; rules that land-dwellers don't always comprehend before taking that first dive.

Next:  Diving With Sharks: Here Are The Best Places For The Ultimate Underwater Thrill

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The World’s 7 Most Amazing Underwater Museums

• Activities and Interests
• History and Culture

As a Marine Biologist by education, and an art lover by interest, combined with being an avid traveler and keen scuba diver, the idea of an underwater sculpture park is simply perfection to me. And what I especially like is that many of the newer underwater museums strive to create awareness about the environmental threats faced by our oceans today.

Take the MOUA along the Great Barrier Reef: Every single installation has a story, tells of specific threats, and is not just beautiful, but makes you think. And extracting awareness from a piece of art is always a bonus. But obviously, it also adds great fun and adventure to a trip to the seaside.

In just the last couple of years, new underwater museums have popped up around the globe, and they are all encouraging local as well as international tourism, raising residents as well as visitors awareness and a feeling of responsibility toward the sea and its creatures, while also adding a much-needed boost to tourism income to the community.

And they are so enjoyable. Whether you can scuba dive or not, the vast majority of these sculpture parks are accessible by glass-bottomed boats, some even have sculptures visible from land, but there is nothing quite like donning a mask and some fins and snorkeling in clear waters across an art installation.

Here are some of the best.

1. Museum of Underwater Art, Townsville, Australia

Off the coast of Townsville, along the Great Barrier Reef and not far from Magnetic Island lies MOUA , Museum of Underwater Art opened in 2020, and a superb showcase of installations by British sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor. MOUA is an innovative project combining underwater art, research, and education, accessible not only to scuba divers and snorkelers but also extending onto dry land. It prides itself in being a project telling an informed story about the Great Barrier Reef and the impacts of people and climate change. Jason deCaires Taylor’s work is especially significant, as he is a leading marine conservationist, and his art, also seen at the Underwater Museum of Cannes below, is a powerful storyteller.

Pro Tip : This is a great addition to a Great Barrier Reef road trip , and goes very well with the simply superb Reef HQ Aquarium in Townsville, which allows you a look at all the creatures living in the sea, without having to get wet.

2. The Underwater Museum Of Cannes, France

Four years in the making, the Cannes Underwater Museum was opened in 2021 and is a great addition to France’s Riviera Coast attractions. With the sculptures by Jason deCaires, of MOUA fame, nestled on the white sand and fringed by luminous seagrass, visitors don’t even have to scuba dive to appreciate the installations, but can easily reach them by snorkeling the area. As already reported in TravelAwaits , the subjects of the sculptures are based on portraits of local community members covering a range of ages, including an 80-year-old fisherman named Maurice and a 9-year-old boy named Anouk, making the art even more personal and specific to the region.

Pro Tip : The godfather of scuba diving Jacques Cousteau was director of the Oceanographic Museum in nearby Monaco, which perches not only in a spectacular setting, but is a must-see if you are interested in the underwater world.

3. Museo Subacuático De Arte (MUSA), México

The Cancun Underwater Museum can be found on the bustling stretch between La Isla and Aquaworld and is probably one of the most diverse underwater museums where art is concerned. From people burying their heads in the sand to a VW car, abstract figures to domestic scenes, this museum takes some time to explore. And, luckily, you have various ways of exploration. Travel Art is a tour operator who specializes in tours of this museum, and offers snorkeling trips, glass-bottomed boat tours, and scuba diving, to make sure everybody can enjoy the art, not just skilled scuba divers.

Pro Tip : Scuba diving and snorkeling are extremely popular around Cancun, with amazing marine life to be viewed. Here you can learn to scuba dive , no matter your age, or, if you are already an expert, join in tours along the coast.

4. Museo Atlántico Lanzarote, Spain

And here, we have underwater sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor’s handiwork again. This time, in the lovely setting of the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. This museum predates the other two in Australia and France, having opened in 2016, but has lost nothing of its power: Designed to act as an artificial reef, the Museo Atlantico consists of 10 different groups of sculptures. There are powerful images, among others, such as the famous Raft of Lampedusa, a reference to the refugee crisis in Europe, and a group of 35 human figures walking towards a wall. Like in Cannes, the models used for these sculptures are residents of Lanzarote. The largest installation depicts a human gyre consisting of 200 life-size sculptures placed in a never-ending circle. According to the museum, the artist wants to highlight the beauty of the underwater world and emphasize the need to protect it with this piece.

Pro Tip : As this museum is best viewed while scuba diving, there is a special and quick program that teaches those without a diving license the basic skills and takes you out to see the sculptures, for a double adventure.

5. The Baiheliang Underwater Museum, China

This underwater museum is a little different, as it is not located in the sea, but in a river. The Yangtze River, to be precise. The archeological site of Baiheliang was submerged by the building of the Three Gorges Dam, and now the natural ridge and noteworthy sites such as stone carvings, lie beneath 140 feet of water. What makes this museum even more special, is that you can view the underwater sites from the museum and stay dry. No need to learn how to scuba dive for this one. Instead, the ridge has reportedly been enclosed in an arch-shaped glass dome that is filled with purified water. Two underwater channels with escalators and travelators have been installed from the museum on the riverbank, allowing museum visitors to go beneath the surface of the dam to see the stone carvings and inscriptions without needing to get into the water themselves. The museum also displays other treasures that have been rescued before the dam swallowed up the area.

Pro Tip : Combine the visit with a Three Gorges cruise , traveling through a magical landscape like no other.

6. Underwater Archeological Park of Baia, Italy

On the doorstep of the southern city of Naples , in the scenic Bay of Naples lies a treasure trove of Roman history, amazingly well-preserved under the waves. The bay has always been popular with sun-and water-seeking travelers, and Roman tourists were no different. Baia used to be a popular resort some 2,000 years ago. But then, an unusual seismic phenomenon called “bradyseism,” made the resort sink beneath the Mediterranean Sea. Reportedly, unlike earthquakes which move mostly horizontally, bradyseism makes the ground move upward or downward and sank Baia. Now it is enjoying a revival, if only by scuba divers and snorkelers, who can enjoy seeing statues, Roman mosaic floors, and ruins all on the seafloor. There are seven underwater sites, all archeological reserves, and all at a depth ranging from roughly 15 feet to a maximum of 42 feet.

Pro Tip : The local scuba club offers an introductory snorkeling course , preparing you to see the Roman wonders underwater.

7. Molinere Bay Underwater Sculpture Park, Grenada

And one last underwater sculpture park filled with the sculptures of underwater artist extraordinaire Jason deCaires Taylor. The Molinere Bay — or Grenada Underwater Sculpture Park was not only the first of Jason deCaires Taylor’s underwater art museums but also the World’s first underwater museum, dating to 2006. It showcases 75 works covering an area of 8600 square feet in the Caribbean Sea, and less than 10 to a maximum of 16 feet under the surface. Like in many of these underwater parks, you can view the art by either scuba diving, snorkeling, or enjoying a tour on a glass-bottomed boat.

Highlights include a lost writer tapping on a typewriter, Christ under the Waves, and a man on a bicycle, with all sculptures, as is the habit of the artist, having been placed to form a new reef and habitat for the marine fauna and flora.

Pro Tip : To keep the theme going, why not try out the Aquarium Restaurant ? It offers a huge choice of local, and very fresh seafood, plus a popular Sunday barbecue.

Underwater wonders can be experienced in a variety of ways:

• 10 Unique Underwater Stays Around The World
• 9 Interesting Places to Experience Maritime History On The Gulf Coast
• 13 Things To Know If You Want To Try Scuba Diving After 50

A travel writer and guidebook author for the last 20 years, Ulrike's work has been seen in National Geographic , BBC , The Independent , Australian Women's Weekly , The Telegraph , The Australian , Fodor's , France Today , CNN Travel , Lonely Planet , Travel + Leisure , CNTraveler , numerous inflight magazines, and many others.

She has written three books for Moon Travel Guides: 'Living Abroad in Australia' (3rd edition), 'Sydney & the Great Barrier Reef', and the shorter version 'Spotlight Sydney' and are all available in print and as e-books.

Having lived in seven countries (Germany, UK, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Australia, and France) to date and traveled to more than 100, she specializes in writing about travel, art and architecture, expat living, and life and style.

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Diving into Greece’s first underwater museum

A national marine park protects wildlife and now offers tours of “the Parthenon of shipwrecks” off the island of Alonissos.

“Greece, always in season” declared the sun-soaked nation’s tourist campaign last January. It was a marketing slogan backed by truth; in 2019 some 34 million visitors were drawn here. But then the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and decimated the tourism industry.

Yet there’s a glimmer amid the gloom: the designation of Greece ’s first underwater museum. The unusual site, which preserves an ancient shipwreck, aims to lure future visitors; it could become a model for how to make tourism more sustainable in the post- pandemic era.

( Related: Discover more destinations on the rise for 2021 .)

​​Located in the National Marine Park of Alonissos and Northern Sporades , in the Aegean Sea, the museum is part of the largest marine protected area in Europe . Because of looting concerns, the undersea antiquities were previously accessible only to archaeologists and those with special permission. Now recreational divers can plunge into the waters and, at a depth of about 80 feet, encounter the so-called Peristera, named after the neighboring uninhabited islet. As the wreck dates back to about 425 B.C., diving to it is like traveling in a time machine.

Layers of discovery

In 1985 a local fisherman, Dimitris Mavrikis, found the wreck off the west coast of Peristera. Seven years later, underwater excavations led by archaeologist Elpida Hatzidaki uncovered more detail. The ship was one of the biggest merchant vessels of the classical period (fifth through fourth centuries B.C.) and carried an impressive cargo: 4,000 wine amphorae (large two-handled jars) originating from the ancient Greek cities of Mende and Peparethus, plus black-glazed bowls, cups, plates, and tableware—essential items for the lavish banquets, or symposia, of the time.

( Related: Learn about the last American slave ship, discovered in Alabama .)

The demise of the ship, likely Athenian, came at the end of the Peloponnesian War –those turbulent decades when two superpowers, Athens and Sparta, battled each other. Archaeologists recovered only some burnt wooden parts of the ship’s hull, but the piled amphorae led to a major discovery.

“Large vessels as this [39 by 82 feet] were considered to be first built in Roman times. Peristera shipwreck, though, documents their presence already in the last quarter of the fifth century B.C.,” says Pari Kalamara, director of Greece’s Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities .

The shipwreck is also one of the best preserved. “The amphorae cargo has maintained its consistency and remains in place, in layers, such as was loaded in the hold, indicating the vessel’s shape,” says Kalamara. “This is a significantly unique experience for the divers-visitors who visualize a classical-era vessel.”

Twenty years after the last excavation, the site dubbed “the Parthenon of shipwrecks” still holds some secrets: how ancient trade was developed, how the ship was constructed, and why it sank. And perhaps the most evocative question of all: what lies beneath the amphorae?

Opening to the public

With the recent designation as an underwater museum, recreational divers accompanied by certified instructors began visiting the shipwreck during a pilot phase from August to October 2020.

“There has been huge interest from all over the world. This is the first time that so many experienced divers arrived,” says Kostas Efstathiou of Alonissos Triton Dive Center , one of the accredited local tour operators. For advanced divers, there were four visits each day, and those with no dive experience could take lessons in order to visit. “I believe in the coming years Alonissos will take her place on the global diving map,” Efstathiou says.

( Related: Here are 21 of the world’s best dive spots .)

As divers descend, the sunlight dims and the colors fade. But flashlights bring back the hues, and visitors glimpse the oranges, greens, and reds of the corals, schooling fish, and sponges—and the moray eels poking their heads out of amphorae. At a depth of about 50 feet, divers get a panoramic view of the ancient wreck turned modern-day ecosystem. “This is awe-inspiring,” says Efstathiou. “What you see … is 2,500 years old, a time travel.”

Wreck enthusiasts don’t have to dive to get a peek into this undersea realm. From the site, five underwater cameras stream real-time video, and one is open to the public (the others are currently reserved for scientists). “This is a world innovation using state-of-the-art technologies,” says George Papalambrou, a professor in the School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and a member of the project team. “While watching the video … people from all over the world, divers or non-divers, [can] share the diving experience.”

Also, on Alonissos island , at the Information and Awareness Centre in the hillside village of Chora, non-divers will be able to use special glasses to take a 3D virtual-reality tour of the shipwreck.

Even with coronavirus travel restrictions in place, the museum’s pilot phase drew 66 scheduled underwater visits and 246 visitors-divers, an optimistic kickoff to the official opening, scheduled for June 2021.

Protecting culture—and nature

Antiquities are not the only treasures safeguarded in the region. Efforts to protect rare or endangered terrestrial and marine species started in the 1970s. By 1992 an area of nearly one thousand square miles—including Alonissos, six smaller islands, and 22 islets—was declared the first national marine park in Greece.

Today more than 50 endangered Mediterranean monk seals find refuge at the nature reserve of Gioura and the protected area of Piperi; Eleonora’s falcons at the islets of Skantzoura, Strogilo, and Polemica; and rare plants like the sea daffodil in Psathoura. The park also shelters a rare wild goat breed, 300 fish species, and more than 80 bird species, as well as reptiles, dolphins, whales, terrestrial flora, and the seagrass Posidonia oceanica, known as Neptune grass.

“Our visitors are lovers of the sea, nature, sailing. Here you become one with nature, as you are part of an untouched environment,” says Yiannis Nikolopoulos, special associate to the mayor of Alonissos. “This is a truly green island, covered by rich vegetation, being the first Greek island that banned the plastic bag [in] 2015. Her face is thankfully not altered by tourism.”

( Related: Discover how Greece is rethinking its once bustling tourism industry .)

Last summer, the pandemic caused tourism to plummet by 85 percent compared to the previous year, says Aggeliki Malamateniou, president of the Alonissos Hotel Owners Association. “Our visitors, though, are loyal,” she says. “They do appreciate what Alonissos offers.”

What it offers—with the marine park and museum—is distinctive. For it to be sustainable, the island’s treasures need to be preserved for the long run. “All of us in the area and the diving centers have a large share of responsibility,” says Efstathiou. If diving tourism can be developed in a way that continues to protect the antiquities and the environment, it “can offer unique experiences to visitors, further cultivate their interest in the underwater heritage, and provide new revenue to the local community,” says Kalamara.

In 2019 four more shipwrecks in the region were designated as accessible underwater archaeological sites, with the intention to make them future museums. This could signal a new trend in a country with almost 10,000 miles of coastline and hundreds of shipwrecks.

“The biggest challenge [for the first museum] was the design to be holistic and long-term functional, so that it could serve as a paradigm for similar initiatives elsewhere,” says Kalamara, “And I think we have succeeded.”

Related Topics

• CULTURAL TOURISM
• SCUBA DIVING
• WILDLIFE WATCHING
• ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
• SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

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There's More to That

A Smithsonian magazine podcast

Science | August 24, 2023

Deep-Sea Tourism or Deep-Sea Science?

Two chroniclers of explorers, including one who profiled OceanGate’s Stockton Rush, reflect on what visiting the depths of the ocean can—and can’t—teach us

Chris Klimek

Host, " There's More to That "

Today, as in eras past, a lot of wealthy men fancy themselves explorers. The tragic—but, by most accounts, foreseeable and preventable—loss of five passengers and crew on a sub dive down to the wreckage of the Titanic in June got us thinking about what genuine undersea exploration looks like.

On the latest episode of the Smithsonian magazine podcast “There’s More to That,” I speak with Tony Perrottet, who profiled the late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush for Smithsonian magazine in 2019, about his experience reporting that story, and about our ancient fascination with exploring hostile environments. I next speak with Susan Casey, who has written four best-selling books about the ocean and its creatures, the newest of which is The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean. (You can read an excerpt from The Underworld here .) Susan tells us why understanding the ocean is key to humanity’s survival, and how while serious research and shipwreck tourism may have some overlap, they remain two very different things.

A transcript of the episode is below. To subscribe to " There's More to That, " find us on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or wherever you get your podcasts.

Chris Klimek, host: One day, Tony Perrottet opened his newspaper and read about a submersible going missing in the Atlantic Ocean near the wreck of the Titanic .

Tony Perrottet, Smithsonian magazine contributor:  It was kind of a surreal experience reading about it, because to have this personal connection was kind of unexpected and a little haunting, really.

Klimek: In 2019, Tony spent time with OceanGate founder Stockton Rush  while on assignment for Smithsonian magazine . He even got a chance to take a ride in a submersible called the Cyclops . The Cyclops was a sister vehicle to the Titan , the ship that imploded, killing all five passengers, including Rush.

Perrottet: At the beginning, we thought that everyone's sort of stuck down there slowly running out of air, and I could, of course, have visualized this probably more than most since I've been on the Cyclops . But the whole thing was very strange, and it brought up a lot of emotions.

Klimek:  Tony recalled his brief trip to the bottom of Washington State's Puget Sound one stormy day four years ago.

Perrottet: You've got the oculus, the eye there, and it sort of slides off at an angle in, and you see the water rising up, and it was very murky. I think they call it the “milkshake.” There was some filtered light, and then you go down there and there's the silence.

Klimek:  After about 20 minutes, it was time to resurface.

Perrottet:  So we just sat there, and then you come up, and then when you see the water line and it's slightly distorted, it is kind of a magical sort of feeling, sort of defying nature. And so that was very exciting. Nevertheless, it ain't natural.

Klimek:  That alluring yet unsettling feeling is not the only thing Tony took away from this experience, which is why we gave him a call. This news story got us thinking about the nature of underwater exploration and of exploration itself. Who gets to call themselves an explorer now? What does the idea of traveling to the depths of the ocean spark in our imaginations? And who's actually making discoveries that can help make life better on land?

From Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions, this is “There's More to That,” a podcast where journalists often travel to remote locations to bring you the context behind the headlines. On today's show, we take a deep dive into the ocean with two people who have a lot to say about it. I'm Chris Klimek—here we go.

Tony Perrottet met OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush at a hotel in Seattle during a rare snowstorm. A reminder that just because you haven't prepared for something doesn't mean it can't happen.

Perrottet:  And they only got a couple of inches of snow, but in Seattle that's so rare. The whole city was paralyzed, so it took him ages to get out of his four-wheel drive to meet me. It was all very dramatic, and we were there in this strange little cocoon really, and watching the snow come down. It was very silent and sort of eerie, as if we were in a submarine at the bottom of the ocean, in a weird way.

Klimek:  Rush would frequently draw on science fiction as he described his underwater ambitions.

Perrottet:  All his references were “Star Trek” references. He wanted to be Captain Kirk on the Enterprise . He wanted to be the one exploring and discovering stuff.

Klimek:  He even framed the risks of deep sea travel in “Star Trek” language.

Perrottet:  He once compared being over-worried about safety, was being worried that the Klingons were going to attack. It's a remote possibility.

Klimek:  Rush did build his business around people's fascination with the deep sea and exploration, the romanticism of figures like Captain Nemo or even Indiana Jones.

Perrottet:  The whole Titanic thing, it was a marketing ploy in a way. He was trying to get people interested in deep ocean and he's like, "How do you get people interested?" Most people, if you talk about what's in the ocean, most people think of whales, sharks or the Titanic , and people love shipwrecks. But then if you ask people to name a shipwreck, he said, "It's like Titanic , Titanic and Titanic ." It gets people's imaginations going.

Klimek:  Down to the price of a ticket aboard the submersible, Rush was trying to tap into this sense of adventure that the Titanic seemed to inspire in those who could afford it.

Perrottet:  It was like a great PR stroke. He decided: What are we going to charge to take people down to the Titanic ? And he got the price of the first-class ticket as it was in 1912, and he put it into the Department of Labor’s inflation thing online, and he got massive publicity because of this. It ended up going up to $250,000, but he was a great entrepreneur. He was able to sense what people would get excited about.

Klimek:  Tony explained that there's been a morbid fascination surrounding the wreck of the Titanic ever since people started diving there in the mid-’80s.

Perrottet:  Particularly after, in the early years, when people were going down in the 1990s, the first submersibles going down, and people were taking things, and they took a strip of the Titanic and all these odds and ends that are now on display in the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas. There's an extreme voyeurism there.

Klimek:  It turns out the human appetite for morbid tourism goes back to ancient times.

Perrottet:  The ancient Romans and the Greeks had the same sort of thing. They would go as tourists to ancient Egypt, and they were fascinated by the Cult of the Dead, and yet they also were worried that they were crossing a line.

Klimek:  Some believed there were consequences to this.

Perrottet:  There'd be these tragedies, like the Emperor Hadrian would … his lover drowns, and it's as if the Gods are going to seek some revenge on us for being too morbidly obsessed with death.

Klimek:  This is an idea that persisted throughout human history.

Perrottet:  The Victorians were very ambivalent about archeological research in Egypt, shipping back mummies, basically grave robbing and putting them on display, and these stories that are spiritually wrong or that you're going to bring some curse down upon you.

Klimek:  Moving into the 20th century, Tony cited the story of an English earl named Lord Carnarvon. He was the man who funded the search and excavation of King Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt. In 1922, less than five months after first setting foot inside of it, he died of a mysterious, seemingly cursed, mosquito bite. Several other archeologists and self-styled explorers who visited the tomb or examined remains taken from it also died shortly after. Newspapers reported the deaths as a so-called Curse of the Pharaohs. Since then, dozens of movies have been made about curses falling upon those who would dare violate an ancient sacred space.

Do you think the persistence of those stories supports this idea, like maybe we should leave these sites of tragedy be and not go sticking our noses in?

Perrottet:  Yeah, I think it taps into these moral, spiritual dreads, and maybe with the Titanic it's a bit like that. Why? Why do we need to dwell on this pretty dismal sort of thing? Why do we have to find the shoes, the jewelry of these people who died in this great tragedy? What's wrong with us? Many people do regard the Titanic site as a mass grave in a way, which it was. Sort of like this obsession with it can sometimes seem like it's tempting fate or something, or it brings up a lot of weird superstition in a way.

Klimek:  And yet this romantic idea of what an explorer is has stuck around. Tony says that Stockton Rush came from a long line of people with grand notions of groundbreaking discovery.

Perrottet:  He reminded me of one of these 19th-century characters, very privileged upbringing, American aristocracy really, and his [ancestors] had signed the Declaration of Independence, and so he reminded me of the English aristocrats who would give up everything to go the Amazon and then die and enduring all sorts of bizarre challenges and discomforts and losing their fortunes to do these things. And yet it seemed to him he didn't have any choice. He felt compelled to do this.

Klimek:  But of course it was a choice. It's a choice that we see so many of these eccentric billionaires make, whether they go to the bottom of the ocean or into space, and what they may not realize is that the nature of being an explorer has changed a lot.

Perrottet:  There's certainly a longing to discover things and to do something original. I guess it's the frontier thing as well, somewhat tainted now that we realize that this discovery thing is often quite ambiguous. The discovery of Machu Picchu, for example, turns out a local villager knew all about it and just pointed him the way. Things like that, and the whole idea of the frontier is obviously Native Americans are like, "What the hell?" And this idea of discovery and exploration that runs through travel in general, first world people going off into third world countries and discovering things and the newness and reaching the last untouched highland tribe in New Guinea, it's no longer quite as romantic as it was in the 1920s and ’30s as we realized the devastating consequences of all this.

And yet the idea of climbing that last mountain or finding that lost tributary, it's like the Explorers Club in New York has this huge problem. It used to have … you become a member if you find some geographical thing that no one's ever found before, but they've run out of them. But to be the first person to see something, it is a very romantic idea, and it just captures the imagination in a way that seems to be embedded in our culture in a certain way. Weirdly, I suppose in a sense, the underwater thing is actually a slightly purer thing, because it's like, you're not necessarily disenfranchising people.

Klimek:  OceanGate claimed it was engaging in scientific discovery, but it mostly boiled down to a tourism venture for the ultrarich. We were curious about what actual underwater discovery looks like today at depths even deeper than the wreck of the Titanic . Luckily, we knew who to call. Susan Casey is the author of a new book called The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean . You can read an excerpt from The Underworld at Smithsonianmag.com.

While writing it, she traveled to ocean research sites around the globe to find out how human survival is linked to the deep ocean and how submersibles are being used for vital research. We began by talking about her own fascination with the ocean.

So basically your beat is the ocean, most of the planet. Tell us how this became your beat.

Susan Casey, author , The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean :  Well, it was always a major interest. I can't even remember when that started. My first conscious memory is of just being fascinated by water and always wanting to be in the water and always wanting to know what was under the water, and it just has never, ever left me. I always think of myself as a proxy for curious people who may not want to go out themselves and hang out with great white sharks or get on the top of a 70-foot wave or go 70,000 feet down into a volcano, but are interested to know what that would be like. So that's what animates me.

And I always want to go with scientists, because they're the ones who can really put into context all the fascinating things that are happening in the environment. It's cool to see it, but it's even cooler when you find out what's going on and what they're learning from it, which is just like every time they go down there, they come back with new species, they come back with new questions, they come back with new knowledge. To me, it's just endlessly fascinating, and I like to spread my fascination through stories.

Klimek:  Yeah, I was struck as I'm just learning for this segment about the names of the various layers of the deep ocean that seem to have poetic significance. Can you walk us through those layers, please?

Casey:  Yes. Well, so there are different ways to delineate the deep ocean. The deep ocean typically is considered to be the water below 600 feet. So the top layer of the deep ocean beneath the sunlight layer, which ends at 600 feet, is called the twilight zone or the Mesopelagic. Below the twilight zone is the midnight zone, which is from 3,300 to 10,000 feet. And then below that is the abyssal zone, which is also known as the abyss, and it is from 10,000 to 20,000 feet, and that's where a lot of the seafloor is, at those abyssal depths.

But there's a lower depth in the subduction zones where tectonic plates come together and create these deep V-shaped trenches, and that's known as the hadal zone, named after Hades, god of the underworld. Those are very deep. They go from 20,000 to 36,000 feet, but they're very long, narrow trenches like the Mariana Trench, and so they don't account for a lot of the footprint of the deep ocean, but they account for 45 percent of its depth. So they're really significant in terms of just the sheer depth of them, but they only take up, I think it's about 2 percent of the footprint of the seafloor.

Klimek:  So even the term “ocean floor” is a little misleading, because it makes you picture something that is of roughly uniform depth, but that's really not what it's like. It's pocketed with these deep, deep trenches.

Casey:  I think there was something like 27 hadal trenches, but that number is surprisingly fluid. I remember trying to pin it down when I was writing in my book, and it's like as they learn more about the seafloor, they find out more about these hadal environments, and a lot of them haven't been explored very much, and the seafloor has only been mapped at high resolution across about 25 percent of it. So every time we get more high-resolution data about the seafloor, it's like putting a lens on the Hubble Telescope.

Klimek:  So as I understand it, the belief initially was that the surface of the earth must be expanding if the ocean floor is constantly changing, but it's not. Why is that?

Casey:  Because of subduction, the whole theory of how continental plates move was, from what I understand, a knock-down, drag-out science argument that went on for a long time until it was finally settled. They are moving and they're drifting, they're moving. Now, they've discovered the mid-ocean ridge where the plates are pulling apart, and they saw that when the plates pull apart, magma comes up from below and creates new seafloor and squeezes mountains on the sides. So if that's happening all the time, the earth must be expanding.

But what is so cool is that on the opposite side of the plate, the plate is subducting. So as the plates meet and butt heads with each other, one of them is driven downward, it is exposed to tremendous heat and pressure and melts and goes back into the mantle. So at the same time, new seafloor is being built, old seafloor is being consumed in perfect equilibrium, which is really extraordinary.

I remember one scientist saying to me that the largest geological feature on earth is the mid-ocean ridge, which is where tectonic plates are pulling apart. It's a 40,000-mile, basically, area. If you imagine earth like a baseball, the mid-ocean ridge is like the seams on a baseball, and in those areas the plates are pulling apart and new seafloor is coming up, as well as all kinds of microbial life, volcanic vents happen there. So there's a lot of action along the mid-ocean ridge, and it's very big.

So what the scientist said to me was every day along the mid-ocean ridge, there are explosions going off, likely at supersonic speed, changing the chemistry of the seawater around them, bringing up microbial life from deeper within the seafloor and the mantle. And we don't understand how that affects the whole, and there's just a lot of very talented people out there trying to find out. And one thing that's exciting is that there are advances in technologies that are making it possible to do things that weren't possible in the past, but it's still … We have a long way to go before we can say we really understand how the ocean works.

Klimek:  I think this is so little understood what you're saying about just how volatile even the composition of the ocean at those lower depths is. We imagine, certainly, the composition to be this static thing, and it's not. You're saying there's constantly new elements being introduced to the water as a result of tectonic activity. Is that broadly correct?

Casey:  Yeah, absolutely. When I first started this, like you said, tended to think of the seafloor as pretty solid, but when you get below the seafloor, it was explained to me it's like a bowl of marbles. So there are actually microbial creatures living deep beneath the seafloor in the cracks and the fissures. Really interesting new discoveries in terms of what they call the “deep biosphere.”

Klimek:  To really underscore the idea that this isn't just some vague quest for knowledge in the broad sense, you wrote about how microbes on the ocean floor led to the development of ways to test for Covid-19.

Casey:  Yeah, I don't know the actual details of the chemistry behind it, but it was a microbe from a volcanic vent was used for the enzyme that was used to develop the test for Covid-19.

Klimek:  It turns out that this microbe contained an enzyme that could remain stable even at very high temperatures. Scientists leveraged this characteristic to develop the PCR test in the 1980s. Now it's used to test for Covid and other kinds of viruses, and that's not all.

Casey:  There's another microbe that was found in deep-sea sediments in the Atlantic that has been found to kill cancer cells, and it is in final clinical trials. They've studied it for glioblastoma, which is the cancer that killed John McCain, and it was found in deep-sea sediments in the Bahamas at 3,642 feet, and it is incredibly effective. It's being developed by Scripps, and it was discovered by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the scientists that discovered it said basically it just killed cancer cells, completely killed them.

Klimek:  Susan included this discovery in her book. While she was writing, she also spent time with Paul-Henri Nargeolet, one of the passengers who died aboard OceanGate's Titan submersible. Susan called him by the nickname P.H. I asked her about when she first learned the submersible had gone missing.

Casey:  I just stopped in my tracks. I was walking in New York City and I just thought, "Oh no." Because everybody who knew anything about that submersible worried that the problem with it was that it potentially could implode, and it did. So I texted another person who's in my book who knows a lot about this manufacturer of submersibles, and said, "Please tell me P.H. wasn't on that." And he said he was on it, and P.H. was a real icon of the deep and one of the most experienced deep submergence people in the world. Nobody could figure out what he was doing on that sub, because it was, to put it mildly, an incredibly unorthodox sub that had skirted all of the usual safety regulations, submersible classification processes that all the other subs go through. And because they all go through it, there hasn't been a fatality in a manned submersible for 50 years, and there's never been an implosion.

But OceanGate did not do this. This is not somebody's opinion. This is the laws of physics, and the materials that he used for the sub were not the right materials for that environment, and the shape of the sub was not the correct shape for that environment. It's just really tragic, and it didn't have to happen.

Klimek:  And I guess why Nargeolet would even want to go is a question, given this is not a person who would be seduced by the novelty value of going down to the wreckage of the Titanic .

Casey:  Yeah, I can tell you right now there's a lot of confused people, and a lot of people tried to talk him out of it, but he was very connected to the wreck of the Titanic . He did a lot of the retrieval of conservation of objects that were going to disintegrate. Thirty dives, 35 dives, and he was a historian of it as well, and he knew the stories of all the people who were on board. Really, if I had to guess it was that he just could not resist the chance to go back down there, and this was the only sub that was going down there.

Klimek:  Can you please tell us about your experience with Mr. Nargeolet, the time you spent with him as you were doing the reporting for your book?

Casey:  We sailed together in the Pacific. He was there to oversee everything that was happening and just make sure that everything was safe. I was a little intimidated, but he is an incredibly humble man. He was 73 when I met him in 2019. I described him in my book as a dashing character, because that's how he came across to me. P.H. cleared all kinds of mines from the seabed, from Hitler's troops, booby-trapped bombs in the English Channel, and was just a badass. He was a captain of the French Navy. He was a saturation diver. He had stories, P.H. had stories, and he was just incredibly kind. I remember just sitting and talking to him. He really just loved the ocean. So that was really super fun to talk to him about it, because he had seen so much.

Klimek:  That's a terrible loss. In your opinion, was what OceanGate was doing, was that scientific exploration?

Casey: No, because they had no sampling capability on their sub. In order to do scientific exploration and have a science-class sub, you need all kinds of mechanisms to secure samples, to be able to identify them, to keep them at pressure as you're coming. It's complicated. I read somewhere that they were talking about using the skids of the submersible to take sediment samples, and I phoned up a friend of mine who's a microbiologist at the University of Georgia and told her that, and she laughed. It was just like, it's of no use. I think what they did do was take 4K video, but you're seeing video at one point in time, and I've been on scientific expeditions and I've seen the amount of gear they have, and no, OceanGate was not doing science. Maybe a little bit of archeology, maybe a little bit of videography, and maybe that's of some use, but without a manipulator arm, you're pretty limited.

And I think what he was doing was what I would call “science-washing,” where he was making it sound as if there was a whole lot of important science going on. I'm not saying there's no science to be done at the Titanic , but there have been a lot of dives to the Titanic over the years. A lot more than many other places in the ocean. And I don't know, aside from microbiologists who have studied the way that shipwreck is being consumed by microbes, I'm sure any deep-sea scientist, you offer them a chance to get back into the deep sea, they're going to take it. But that is not a hotbed of science, the wreck of the Titanic .

Klimek:  Some news reports, including one in the Wall Street Journal , have mentioned a sampling device built for the Titan by a firm called eDNAtec. Neither eDNAtec nor OceanGate responded to our requests for comment. We asked Susan to clarify whether this device was the one she and her microbiologist friend were talking about. She confirmed by email that it was, writing, "OceanGate was taking water samples for eDNA, but they had only one bottle, which is a bit of a joke. They had no zero sediment sampling capability, and wiping sediment off the skids is not serious to say the least."

Do you think there's any value to ferrying tourists down to the wreck site? I know Rush would make the argument that, "Well, I have to fund the science with a little tourism." Are you at all sympathetic to that argument?

Casey:  Oh yeah, I totally am. If he had done this correctly, it probably wouldn't have made financial sense. But the idea of using well-heeled adventurers who want to see the Titanic to fund real scientific research with real submersibles that function safely and reliably in the deep-sea environment, I'm all for that mission. There's a big gap between idea and execution here. The problem is, I think, in order to make a deep-sea … the reason there aren't that many that take passengers is because it's very expensive. And he tried to change the business model by making it a different material, making it so he could have five people in the passenger hull, and all of those things may be necessary for the business plan, but the deep ocean doesn't care about your business plan.

Klimek:  That means safety is paramount. We're talking details as minute as facial hair. That's right: Susan gave us a long list of precautions submersible crew members normally take.

Casey:  There are a lot of rules. If you're a man, you have to shave your beard to make sure that there's no oxygen leakage should there be an oxygen event. Nobody's messing around with the element, that's for sure.

Klimek:  That's not something that would've occurred to me, certainly. So you mean when for oxygen leakage, are you actually talking about if you have to put a rebreather on so that it doesn't interfere with the seal?

What are some of the discoveries that submersibles have brought to us?

Casey:  One of my favorites is, now I don't know if the listeners will be familiar with it, and a lot of people have seen pictures of the subs that have an acrylic hull, plexiglass hull, like James Cameron has one. You see them in films a lot, because they're great for filming, because a really deep-sea submersible doesn't have the option of having an acrylic hull. They'll have a titanium hull or a steel hull with smaller view ports, but they've now got an acrylic hull that can go to 2,000 meters. So there's a lot you can see in film and you get a 340 degree panoramic view. These subs have been really popular for documentaries and things like that. And Ray Dalio, who started OceanX with his son Mark Dalio, they have one of these subs and they loaned it to a group of scientists who were looking for the giant squid off the coast of Japan.

And so footage of a live giant squid was taken from one of these submersibles, and it was just incredible. The marine biologist, Edie Widder, had created a flashing lure that she thought would draw in a giant squid, which of course were incredibly elusive. And I believe this might've been as recent as 2012 or 2015. It was recent. And she put that lure out there and not only did the giant squid come, it stayed for a long time. It looked like it was made of metal. It was so beautiful. So they're really good, those subs, for being able to see the environment and understand the environment.

Klimek:  How are the oceans and our climate connected? As the ocean absorbs heat, absorbs carbon, what are the consequences of that?

Casey:  We're going to find out—obviously it will change the chemistry. The ocean is becoming more acidic as the carbon is absorbed by the ocean, and it does take up a lot of our heat and excess carbon dioxide, and nobody exactly knows what the mechanism for that is. But part of it is this biological carbon pump that happens in the twilight zone where these trillions of little animals make the world's largest animal migration every single night and come up closer to the surface from say, a couple thousand feet down, eat phytoplankton, sun-nourished, carbon phytoplankton, swim back down and excrete into the depths. Some of it is sequestered for years, and other bits that make it as far as the seafloor are sequestered for centuries. So there's a lot of complicated mechanisms, including these trillions of animals doing this, the effects that heat will have on them.

It's not going to be good for any ocean organisms. I shouldn't say any. It will probably be good for species of jellyfish and certain other creatures that can evolve or adapt to that changing. But a cold ocean is a nutrient-rich ocean. So it's not great news. If you look at how El Niño, even, impacts the ocean, you can get a sense of it. It's hard on seabirds, it's hard on marine creatures. It's just warmer is harder. There is a lot of—how do I put it?—biological intelligence in the ocean. There is a microbial realm called the “rare biosphere” that seems to be hanging back, waiting for conditions to change. And if they do, that particular type of microbe might flourish again. And there's been evidence of, after volcanic eruptions, whole new regimes of microbial life will come in. So we could see drastic changes in the ocean, and none of them will be good for us, because the way things work now is how we've evolved to live and what we've come to rely on and where we've built our cities and where we've built our houses.

Klimek:  The biggest concern for Susan isn't just the building we've done in the past. It's where humans may go digging in the future. She's particularly alarmed by talk of deep-sea mining and the harvesting of resources like diamonds, cobalt, gold and zinc.

Casey:  Deep-sea mining hasn't happened on any sort of industrial scale yet, but there are a lot of parties that would like it to start happening. And if it is allowed to go forward, it has the potential to be the largest extractive industry we have ever engaged in by an order of magnitude. Each mine site, at least in the first phase of this, would be 30,000 square miles. So it's potentially devastating to the seafloor. I don't think we should do it. I don't think we need to do it. And one of the main reasons I don't think we should do it is because we don't know what's down there. And you hear a lot of talk about, well, we need metals for a greener future. Well, that's not the way to get them. There are a lot of options that we could pursue before taking the last intact carbon-capturing wilderness that we have on the planet and tearing it up before we even know what lives there.

And by lives there, I mean all of that microbial life that we've been talking about. And there's a lot of scientists that would like to see between 10 to 30 years of further study before this is even considered, because they're going to be going for these manganese nodules. I think of them as trees, but they're made of metal, but they've got microorganisms inside them. There are microorganisms that live under them. There are animals that live specifically in manganese nodule fields, because that's the habitat they've evolved to live in, and they grow like pearls. Metals accrete from the seawater over the course of millions and millions of years, and so it's not like it's a sustainable resource. We take these nodules away, and they're not coming back, and the animals that live on them are not coming back, at least on any time scale that makes any sense for humanity. So time to proceed with caution here.

Klimek:  So to try to contrast with the horrific consequences of that—as you've described in some detail—as you were reporting your book, spending time with these scientists and oceanographers, did you witness anything exciting or hopeful that gave you any reasonable cause for optimism?

Casey:  I'm always optimistic. I always say "desperately hopeful." I think the fact that they're out there at all is cause for optimism, and I think people are interested. I think people are quite fascinated by the ocean. When something is discovered in the ocean, people pay attention.

Klimek:  Susan Casey is the author of The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean . Thank you so much for talking with us today, Susan. This has been a fascinating conversation.

Casey:  Thank you so much.

Klimek:  To read Tony's profile of Stockton Rush, as well as an exclusive excerpt from Susan's new book, The Underworld , wherein she takes you along on a deep-sea dive to an underwater volcano, go to Smithsonianmag.com. We also have a link in our show notes. We like to close each episode with an extra pocket-sized bit of information you can use if you find yourself in a conversational lull at your next social gathering. This episode's dinner party fact is about how a certain sea creature takes its meals.

Carlyn Kranking:  Hi, I'm Carlyn Kranking. I'm Smithsonian magazine's assistant digital editor for science and innovation. And my dinner party fact is that seahorses don't have stomachs. So a group of scientists in Australia recently released about 380 endangered white seahorses in Sydney Harbor. They had raised the animals in captivity, and they said that they had to feed them basically constantly, because seahorses don't have stomachs.

So I looked it up, and it's really true. Seahorses don't have stomachs, and they actually do not have teeth either. They just eat by slurping their prey through their snouts. And the super tiny sea creatures that they eat just start breaking down as soon as they enter a sea horse's body. It's actually the animals’ intestines that do the digesting, and this is a really inefficient way of eating. They don't get much energy from it, so that's why they have to eat so much and so constantly.

So next time you're at a dinner party, thinking about food, maybe thinking about stomachs, you can share this fact with your friends to impress them and maybe disturb them just a little bit.

Klimek:  “There's More to That “is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is me, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Genevieve Sponsler, Adriana Rozas Rivera, Terence Bernardo and Edwin Ochoa. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. Our episode artwork is by Emily Lankiewicz. Our music is from APM Music. I'm Chris Klimek. Thanks for listening.

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Chris Klimek is a writer and podcast host for  Smithsonian .

Deep-Sea Tourism Is on the Rise. But Is It Safe?

The deep sea is so rarely visited—and so little understood—that it’s regularly compared to outer space. but it’s attracting adventurers intent on experiencing something out of the ordinary..

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Triton Submarines has been active since 2007, when it was founded in Florida.

Courtesy of Nick Verola/Triton Submarines

When you go underwater in a submersible, sunlight blinks through the waves that lap against the viewport. This part doesn’t last long. Soon, as the sub begins to descend, the sunlight starts to fade into blue, and as the sub goes down deeper, every color other than blue begins to drain away. Before long, water will start to look dark cobalt. A few hundred feet below the water’s surface, that blue becomes grayish indigo. When author Susan Casey went on her first dive, she described the color—the only light wavelength with enough energy to penetrate at such depth, a “pure ultramarine”—as narcotic. Another thousand feet, and it becomes pitch black.

In the twilight zone, the first layer of ocean classed as the deep sea, sunlight is almost nonexistent. A sub’s LED lights shine out onto a strange world. Half of the species are older than the dinosaurs. Gill sharks, which have existed on Earth for almost 400 million years, swim by. Once a submersible reaches a certain depth, there are no red-light waves, so the fish are bright red—which renders them invisible—or they’re white. Sometimes they’re shiny, like floating mirrors. In many cases, the shape of the creatures and the way they move defies any existing notion of what an animal looks like.

“Why have we ignored so much of the deep for so long? It’s as if we live in a mansion filled with treasures and artworks and fabulous animals, but haven’t bothered to look in most of the rooms,” Casey wrote in her August 2023 book, The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean. “It’s a failure of curiosity, to say the least, a hobbling myopia that leaves us oddly unacquainted with our own home.”

The deep sea is an ecosystem that, by volume, dominates the planet, but to most people, it’s almost entirely inaccessible because so few vessels that are equipped for exploration accept passengers. The deeper you go, the more inaccessible the ocean is; fewer people have reached the absolute nadir than have flown to the International Space Station. Vessels that can reach the deep sea are almost entirely either used for commercial purposes (the oil industry uses subs to maintain underwater wells and pipelines), scientific research, or they’re luxury craft manufactured for the wealthy. To the degree that deep-sea tourism companies exist, they have offered something that operates largely outside of clear legal jurisdiction, making it incumbent on travelers to assess a company’s safety standards and their own taste for risk.

For those who make the descent, though, the experience can be cathartic, rearranging the perception of what the world is made of in ways that are often compared to an astronaut’s experience of seeing Earth from space . The deep sea is as alien as space but closer, stranger than the moon but belonging to this planet. “It is not space. It’s completely alive,” Casey tells me. “When you think of how much emphasis culturally we put on the idea of exploration in space, and here we have this inner space that’s just a matrix of life. That, to me, is very moving. It really expands your perspective on Earth.”

Deep-sea exploration has always been rare. The first functional submarine was likely developed by Cornelius Drebbel in the 17th century, to navigate under the Thames in London, but it wasn’t until three centuries later that the technology was substantially expanded for military and scientific use. Submarines and submersibles —the difference being that the latter usually have to be transported over long distances on another ship or vessel and operate mostly to descend—were always closely tied to exploration, but it wasn’t until 1960 that explorers finally reached the deepest point of the ocean. They used a bathyscaphe, a kind of submersible, and went down to the bottom of Mariana Trench, more than 35,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. The feat wasn’t replicated until 2012, when film director James Cameron descended in a submersible called the Deepsea Challenger .

Since then, though, there have been 20 more crewed descents to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, including explorer Victor Vescovo’s Five Deeps Expedition, which saw him dive to the deepest location in all five of the world’s oceans between December 2018 and September 2019. While the trench remains out of reach for most, private sub experiences are available to almost any committed and affluent traveler, and there are innumerable efforts to make the sea accessible by creative and novel means. In 2019, Uber launched a submersible rideshare to explore the Great Barrier Reef . One company in Vietnam offers submersible trips for 24 people at a time to a few hundred feet underneath the ocean’s surface, and a smattering of other companies offer 100-foot-deep submarine trips in places like Hawai‘i and Cozumel, Mexico.

None of these reach the deep sea, considered to begin at deeper than 600 feet, or even really come close to it. In some cases, they might be more readily compared to scuba diving (scuba divers can’t go beyond 120 feet or so below sea surface). After the twilight zone, at around 3,300 feet, the ocean becomes completely dark, referred to as the midnight zone, and after 13,100 feet it is considered the abyssal zone. If reaching the deep sea is distinct, reaching the twilight zone can be an introduction to an alien world. “I call it the Manhattan of the deep because it’s just filled with life,” Casey says. “It has more marine creatures in it than all the other regions of the ocean combined, and about 80 percent of them can be bioluminescent. It’s this flashing, twinkling, cosmopolis of creatures.”

But there are few options to reach the twilight zone as a traveler. There’s Scott Waters, who owns a submarine company in Tenerife, Spain, and who will bring people who donate to scientific endeavors down to the depths. Waters partners with the Spanish Oceanographic Institution in the Canary Islands and can cater trips according to project and price—a dive off the shore of Tenerife to do microplastics studies costs roughly $1,955, and more expensive trips, like to study climate change in Antarctica or the origins of life at hydrothermal vents, can go up to $54,000. (Says Waters: “The people who want to travel in a submarine are adventurers and explorers who want to make a true impact on science.”) There’s an unconventional pilot in Honduras named Karl Stanley who built his own sub and will take people to a depth of around 2,000 feet. There’s the option of purchasing a private submersible from Triton Submarines , based in Florida, or Norwegian company U-Boat Worx and storing it on a yacht between uses. Then there was OceanGate, which stopped operations after its fatal implosion on a trip to the Titanic wreck in June 2023 with executive Stockton Rush and four passengers onboard.

Before its submersible disappeared, OceanGate was arguably the most high-profile deep-sea tourism company, renowned for its novel technology and Rush’s approach to innovation. The community of submersible enthusiasts is tight-knit, though, and they worried about such a disaster even before investigators announced that the missing craft likely imploded. Stanley raised concerns about OceanGate’s technology after he descended with Rush in 2018, and, as reported by Vanity Fair , The New Yorker , and CNN , several other experts sounded alarms before the incident.

The problem, according to Patrick Lahey, who cofounded Triton Submarines, was that Rush refused to submit OceanGate submersibles to classification. There are a handful of independent, international marine classification companies that audit and ensure a vessel’s safety for its intended depths, including societies like Det Norske Veritas (DNV) that inspected and certified Vescovo’s sub. Getting a sub certified, or classed, is an arduous process that usually involves submitting a vessel to multiple tests in pressure chambers and on descents to depths beyond what it will visit. Because of the details involved, and the fact that there is limited infrastructure for conducting some of the tests (the only pressure chamber big enough to test Vescovo’s sub was in Russia), the process can get expensive quickly. Maintaining classification also takes repeated tests over time; it’s not enough to get classed once.

Strictly speaking, most submersibles don’t fall under classical maritime law since they don’t sail in and out of port—they’re carried on another ship. That means that they’re subject to the laws of the jurisdiction where they operate, which gets murky once they’re 12 miles away from coast in international waters. Insurance companies usually decline to back vessels that aren’t independently classed, but it’s still largely an optional step. For subs that are classed, that undergo the extensive testing and regular review, there is an exceedingly solid track record. “The safety protocols are inviolable. They are sacrosanct,” Casey says. “They’re the center of everything and always have been.”

Many submarines are made of steel, including Stanley’s, or more often, titanium. They can either have a single or double hull, they contain ballast tanks that use water and air to control their buoyancy, and they’re often shaped in a circular or cylindrical shape that best distributes pressure over the entire structure. Subs that are designed to reach the bottom of the ocean have to withstand pressures that reach 15,750 pounds per square inch (PSI); the pressure at sea level is 14.7 PSI. “They really are, to me, magical machines,” says Lahey, who built the titanium submersible that carried Vescovo to the deepest points of all five oceans.

But OceanGate was using a new technology, a carbon fiber hull. The company also said its technology was so advanced and its safety precautions were so assiduous that it exceeded the requirements of any certification process. “The OceanGate sub was an experimental craft, it was an aberration. It did not go through peer review,” says Lahey, who has built two dozen craft for private owners, ranging in price from $2 million to $50 million, and who says he considers submarines to be one of the safest types of vehicle. “We need to insist on certification as a requirement for continued human occupied exploration in the deep sea. I hate the idea that people will be afraid to dive in a sub because of that aberration.”

Like many adventurers, travelers who make the descent to the deep sea have to extend their trust to the systems supporting them. The OceanGate disaster may have showed the cost of exercising that trust on an unproven vessel, but without many rules or regulations in place to govern deep sea tourism, those who want to experience the depths have to use their judgment. Waters’s and Lahey’s subs are classed, as are any submersibles operating within U.S. jurisdiction, for example. But Stanley, who has operated hundreds of dives safely, does not have classification. He tells me he didn’t seek certification because it would have tripled the cost of building his sub. “But I mean, there’s doing things with a bit of common sense and testing and due diligence and having a track record,” he says.

Stanley’s Idabel sub launches from Roatán, an island in Honduras. Idabel is Stanley’s second sub; he began building his first when he was 15 years old, in his parents’ backyard in New Jersey. He brought the sub with him to college in Florida, and after graduation he showed it at a dive show where he met the owner of a resort in Honduras who convinced him to start taking tourists under the water. In the two decades since then, he has dived more than 2,500 times, often transporting three or four people to the deep sea for $1,200 per hour, on trips that last around four hours.

When he was starting out, Stanley told me his passengers were mostly scuba divers who wanted to go deeper than they had been before. Now, it’s engineers at Google and Facebook with disposable incomes who want to experience something rare. “If you have the ability to see with your own eyes the most stable, largest ecosystem on our planet that makes up 90 percent of the living space on the whole Earth, why wouldn’t you?” Stanley said.

A few weeks after the OceanGate disaster, a YouTube travel vlogger with around 482,000 subscribers named Ace visited Stanley in Honduras to go underwater. He filmed himself descending, sitting with a view out the bulbous window. In the video, he chats with Stanley, asking questions about the sub. He gives a shout out to his family. He listens to Stanley’s stories about the longest times spent underwater. At one of the deepest points of the dive, as the sub floats over a neon-studded rock formation, he ogles the strangeness of the view. “Wow. Wow. That’s amazing. Wow. Beautiful,” he says. And then they’re quiet for a few seconds, lingering over the deep.

Deep sea tourism could become a thing soon

Stockton Rush is kind of like the Jeff Bezos of the ocean

By Sarah Fecht | Published Apr 17, 2017 8:12 PM EDT

• Environment

Stockton Rush wants to take explorers into the deep sea. Not just scientific researchers or military personnel, but regular (well, wealthy) travelers on a quest of discovery. But don’t call them tourists.

“We call them mission specialists,” says Rush. Whereas “most people envision tourists as someone who just shows up,­ does something, and then heads home with a bunch of pictures,” Rush’s customers will engage in ocean exploration first-hand—a point that went over well at the Explorers Club in New York City, where Rush was giving a talk.

His company, OceanGate, Inc., has been carrying “mission specialists” and other paying clients to sunken ships and underwater oases since 2009.

There are plenty of submarine excursions for tourists, including OceanGate’s Antipodes and Cyclops 1 , but none can dive below 6,500 feet—less than half the average depth of the ocean. But when Cyclops 2 debuts in November, the company says it’ll be the “only privately owned submersible in the world capable of taking 5 crew members to depths of [13,000 feet].”

In 2018, Cyclops 2 is slated take 54 passengers to the Titanic , some 12,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic.

Today there are only four vessels in the world that can dive so deep, and they’re all government-owned—which means they’re pretty much off-limits for commercial uses. There have been a few private excursions to the Titanic , but those tours relied on the Russia-owned Mir submarines, which have since been put into storage.

Humankind has explored only about five percent of the ocean, and the federal government isn’t doing much to improve that—each year, only about $32 million gets put toward ocean exploration. (By comparison, NASA’s budget is $19 billion.) Rush believes there’s room for a commercial solution.

To kick off a new era of human exploration of the oceans, he’s trying to dispel two myths. The first is that submarines are dangerous.

“In the last 35 years, there hasn’t been a serious injury, and there have been over 15 million people going,” Rush said during the talk. “Statistically, [submersibles are] the safest vehicles on the planet.”

He says the second myth—that deep sea exploration is expensive—is based on the fact that up until now, these vehicles were built by governments and universities, partly as symbols of prestige. The focus was on capability—diving the deepest, or taking the most samples—instead of costs and revenue.

OceanGate is trying to make ocean exploration cheaper, and the main obstacle will sound familiar to anyone following the private spaceflight industry: “How do you launch and recover the vehicle economically?” In order to carry tourists into space, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin had to find a way to make spaceflight cheaper, and it does so by reusing rockets to save on launch costs. (SpaceX is also rocking this strategy , but with less of a focus on tourism.)

Launching and retrieving a submarine isn’t quite as complex as rocket science, but a big submersible requires a big ship to ferry it to and from its destination. This usually relies on ships that are specially outfitted with cranes and A-frame structures to lower the sub into the water, and those don’t work well in rough seas. After you’ve already sailed out to the middle of the ocean, canceling a trip due to weather is not only a disappointment to customers, but a waste of money.

To make it cheaper and easier to get in and out of the water, OceanGate designed a sort of trailer—named Ms. Lars (Mobile Subsea Launch and Recovery System)—to tow the submersible behind the ship. While it’s being towed, the sub floats just above the water, a safe distance from the ship; divers hop on an inflatable zodiac raft to enter and leave the sub. Then Ms. Lars floods her flotation tanks with water, sinking 16 to 32 feet below the turbulent surface to launch the sub, then carry it back to the surface after the mission is complete.

“The worst place in the ocean is where you have the air and the water meet,” says Rush. The platform’s design means the sub can deploy even in rough weather, without having to worry about the ship listing as it lowers the heavy vehicle into the water, or the sub crashing into the ship.

And since the platform is tugged behind the ship, Oceangate doesn’t need to charter a special submarine-launching ship—it can deploy using whatever ship is locally available and most suitable for the conditions expected at the site. That helps bring down costs.

Ms. Lars ‘ design is based on a platform created by the Hawaii Undersea Research Lab , but OceanGate claims to have made it safer by eliminating the need for scuba divers to assist in the launch and recovery, which can be dangerous, and by making the platform more mobile.

OceanGate is already using Ms. Lars and its current submersibles to take explorers underwater to film Sixgill sharks, explore the waters around Alcatraz, and to make the first sonar scans of the Andrea Doria , an ocean liner that sank off the coast of Massachusetts and is notoriously difficult for divers to reach.

When Cyclops 2 launches, it’ll be able to bring explorers to visit hydrothermal vents and famous shipwrecks, collecting scientific data—such as how quickly ships decay in different environments—along the way. The 22-foot-long submarine will have a 5-inch thick carbon fiber shell, and will be able to dive to 13,000 feet. It can’t reach the very deepest parts of the ocean , but it reaches the average depth, at least.

Cyclops 2 ‘s debut is scheduled for November of this year, with its first missions to Titanic in 2018. Next year’s Titanic roster is already booked, but the company is taking reservations for 2019.

“[T]oday we are seeing an increased role in private and philanthropic entities supporting advances in ocean exploration and ocean science,” Alan Leonardi, an oceanographer and director of the ocean exploration office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Popular Science . While he asserts that publicly funded research like NOAA’s will continue to be important, private companies can help “make ocean exploration a more public reality,” he says, as well as advance ocean-going technology, making it more affordable for everybody.

Leonardi also noted that it’s important for OceanGate and others like it to avoid damaging artifacts or underwater habitats. “[M]any organizations that are promoting citizen science and exploration are working closely with NOAA and other agencies to identify and encourage everyone to operate in a way that minimizes the chance of harm to the very objects and habitats that are so worth exploring.”

A trip to the bottom of the sea won’t come easy, or cheap.

Potential deep sea explorers will “need to complete an application online, and then you have to have an interview, and then, we will allow you to pay $105,129,” says Rush. “That is the inflation-adjusted price of the Vanderbilt suite—the first-class suite—on the Titanic in 1912.”

The main thing OceanGate screens for in its application process is physical ability, to make sure customers can get into and out of the boats and helicopter that will carry passengers to the dive site. And experience at sea helps, too. After that, training for “mission specialists” includes learning to read the radar, help with communications, and take photographs. “A lot of the tasks are straightforward but can be engaging,” says Rush. “It doesn’t require any special expertise or training.”

Ocean exploration is probably not for everyone, but Rush thinks that his missions will be much more interesting that just going up and down in a rocket, because there’s more to see and do.

“There’s a huge demand for travel that’s different,” he says. “People want to do something meaningful. They want to do something that’s not just different, but that adds value, that they are a contributor for.”

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OceanGate wants to change deep-sea tourism, but its missing sub highlights the risks

Scott Neuman

Submersible pilot Randy Holt and Stockton Rush, CEO and co-founder of OceanGate, dive in the company's Antipodes submersible off the Florida coast in 2013. Rescuers are racing to find a missing OceanGate submersible before the oxygen supply runs out for five people, including Rush, who were on a mission to document the wreckage of the Titanic. Wilfredo Lee/AP hide caption

Submersible pilot Randy Holt and Stockton Rush, CEO and co-founder of OceanGate, dive in the company's Antipodes submersible off the Florida coast in 2013. Rescuers are racing to find a missing OceanGate submersible before the oxygen supply runs out for five people, including Rush, who were on a mission to document the wreckage of the Titanic.

In the past few years, commercial space tourism companies owned by billionaires Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk have been making headlines for sending paying customers into space.

But until this week, few people were aware of another extreme adventure industry that is just getting started: deep-ocean exploration. OceanGate, the company whose Titan submersible went missing Sunday with five people aboard somewhere near the wreck of the Titanic, is on the cutting — and potentially dangerous — edge of this new tourism.

OceanGate on its website touts its "innovative use of materials and state-of-the-art technology" and its "patented launch and recovery platform" as making the deep ocean "more accessible for human exploration than ever before."

However, Jon Council, a submersible expert and president of the Historical Diving Society, cautions that "there are just a multitude of things that can go wrong."

Missing submersible: Rescuers race to find Titan after detecting underwater noises

Council says that while submersible tourism has been around for decades, taking thousands of paying customers into the depths of the ocean in piloted underwater vessels, OceanGate is in a league of its own. Not only is the price tag for its Titanic expedition reportedly a whopping $250,000, no other company has attempted to take customers down nearly as far as the Titanic wreck, which lies about 13,000 feet, or 2.4 miles, under the surface.

There's a huge difference in the pressure loads put on an ordinary tourism submersible, which might dive to a depth of around 1,500 feet vs. OceanGate's Titan, Council says.

"All of the challenges" inherent in submersibles "are exacerbated" in a vehicle, such as Titan, built for extreme depths.

"We signed waivers that would curl your toes"

OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush, who is reportedly aboard the missing submersible, studied mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University. In 2019, he told the Princeton Alumni Weekly : "We don't take tourists."

"We like to refer to them as explorers because we go with a mission," he said.

"The difference between an explorer and an adventurer is an explorer documents what he does, and an adventurer just goes, pounds their chest and tells their friends," Rush said.

CBS Sunday Morning correspondent David Pogue traveled aboard the Titan submersible last year. He recalls "that when we boarded the surface vessel, we signed waivers that would curl your toes."

"It was basically a list of eight paragraphs describing ways that you could be permanently disabled or killed," he tells NPR's All Things Considered . "There's not much you can do if something goes wrong."

OceanGate declined a request for comment.

"This is not a tourist company or an airline for the masses. This is for rich, adrenaline junkie adventurers who thrive on the risk, who have been up on [Bezos'] Blue Origin rocket, many of them," Pogue says.

OceanGate has also offered less ambitious expeditions — and less expensive — than the dive to the Titanic, including off the West Coast, near Seattle; at the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary near San Francisco; and to the wreck of the Andrea Doria, an Italian-flagged passenger liner that sank in 1956 near Nantucket in 240 feet of water.

The Titanic sank in April 1912 after hitting an iceberg. Of the 2,240 passengers and crew on board, more than 1,50o died. It went down about 400 miles from the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at a point in the North Atlantic Ocean where the relatively shallow American continental shelf gives way to much deeper water. Pogue says since OceanGate's deep dives mostly occur in international waters, "there is no governing body" and therefore no regulation.

'Tiny sub, big ocean': Why the Titanic submersible search is so challenging

It has been compared to space tourism.

Rush told the Princeton Alumni Weekly that as a child, he first dreamed of rocketing into space. "I was interested in exploration," he said. "I thought it was space exploration. I thought it was Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars ... and then I realized, it's all in the ocean."

Deep sea rescues have a mixed track record. The Pisces III is one that succeeded

In fact, Rush has compared what OceanGate does to space tourism. He believes that deep-sea tourism could be a first step toward using submersibles for more industrial ventures, such as inspecting and maintaining underwater oil rigs, according to The New York Times. In 2017, he told Fast Company that much like Branson's Virgin Galactic was able to parlay its credibility in space tourism into a satellite launch business, with commercial deep-sea exploration, "The long-term value is in the commercial side."

"Adventure tourism is a way to monetize the process of proving the technology," he said.

Meanwhile, as the search continues for the Titan, the clock is ticking — OceanGate's website says the 22-foot submersible comes equipped with 96 hours of life support.

"As long as there's still life support, there's always a chance. Everyone is crossing their fingers," Council says.

OceanGate wants to change deep-sea tourism, but its missing sub highlights the risks

In the past few years, commercial space tourism companies owned by billionaires Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk have been making headlines for sending paying customers into space.

But until this week, few people were aware of another extreme adventure industry that is just getting started: deep-ocean exploration. OceanGate, the company whose Titan submersible went missing Sunday with five people aboard somewhere near the wreck of the Titanic, is on the cutting — and potentially dangerous — edge of this new tourism.

OceanGate on its website touts its "innovative use of materials and state-of-the-art technology" and its "patented launch and recovery platform" as making the deep ocean "more accessible for human exploration than ever before."

However, Jon Council, a submersible expert and president of the Historical Diving Society, cautions that "there are just a multitude of things that can go wrong."

Council says that while submersible tourism has been around for decades, taking thousands of paying customers into the depths of the ocean in piloted underwater vessels, OceanGate is in a league of its own. Not only is the price tag for its Titanic expedition reportedly a whopping $250,000, no other company has attempted to take customers down nearly as far as the Titanic wreck, which lies about 13,000 feet, or 2.4 miles, under the surface.

There's a huge difference in the pressure loads put on an ordinary tourism submersible, which might dive to a depth of around 1,500 feet vs. OceanGate's Titan, Council says.

"All of the challenges" inherent in submersibles "are exacerbated" in a vehicle, such as Titan, built for extreme depths.

"We signed waivers that would curl your toes"

OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush, who is reportedly aboard the missing submersible, studied mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University. In 2019, he told the Princeton Alumni Weekly : "We don't take tourists."

"We like to refer to them as explorers because we go with a mission," he said.

"The difference between an explorer and an adventurer is an explorer documents what he does, and an adventurer just goes, pounds their chest and tells their friends," Rush said.

CBS Sunday Morning correspondent David Pogue traveled aboard the Titan submersible last year. He recalls "that when we boarded the surface vessel, we signed waivers that would curl your toes."

"It was basically a list of eight paragraphs describing ways that you could be permanently disabled or killed," he tells NPR's All Things Considered . "There's not much you can do if something goes wrong."

OceanGate declined a request for comment.

"This is not a tourist company or an airline for the masses. This is for rich, adrenaline junkie adventurers who thrive on the risk, who have been up on [Bezos'] Blue Origin rocket, many of them," Pogue says.

OceanGate has also offered less ambitious expeditions — and less expensive — than the dive to the Titanic, including off the West Coast, near Seattle; at the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary near San Francisco; and to the wreck of the Andrea Doria, an Italian-flagged passenger liner that sank in 1956 near Nantucket in 240 feet of water.

The Titanic sank in April 1912 after hitting an iceberg. Of the 2,240 passengers and crew on board, more than 1,50o died. It went down about 400 miles from the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at a point in the North Atlantic Ocean where the relatively shallow American continental shelf gives way to much deeper water. Pogue says since OceanGate's deep dives mostly occur in international waters, "there is no governing body" and therefore no regulation.

It has been compared to space tourism

Rush told the Princeton Alumni Weekly that as a child, he first dreamed of rocketing into space. "I was interested in exploration," he said. "I thought it was space exploration. I thought it was Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars ... and then I realized, it's all in the ocean."

In fact, Rush has compared what OceanGate does to space tourism. He believes that deep-sea tourism could be a first step toward using submersibles for more industrial ventures, such as inspecting and maintaining underwater oil rigs, according to The New York Times. In 2017, he told Fast Company that much like Branson's Virgin Galactic was able to parlay its credibility in space tourism into a satellite launch business, with commercial deep-sea exploration, "The long-term value is in the commercial side."

"Adventure tourism is a way to monetize the process of proving the technology," he said.

Meanwhile, as the search continues for the Titan, the clock is ticking — OceanGate's website says the 22-foot submersible comes equipped with 96 hours of life support.

"As long as there's still life support, there's always a chance. Everyone is crossing their fingers," Council says.

The Titan Sub and the Dangers of Unregulated Deep-Sea Tourism

A ll five people aboard a missing submersible known as Titan are believed to be dead, the company that operated the submersible said on Thursday. The crew went missing June 18 shortly after venturing into the deep sea to tour the Titanic wreckage site.

“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” OceanGate Expeditions confirmed in a statement. Authorities reportedly found debris that indicated the vessel may have imploded.

Read More: With a Titanic Tourist Vessel Missing, Here’s What to Know About Submersibles

The ​​sub was carrying a pilot, three wealthy adventurers, and the company’s CEO to see the remains of the Titanic , 2 miles beneath the water’s surface, when it lost contact.

More from TIME

“I am thinking of Suleman, who is 19, in there, just perhaps gasping for breath … It’s been crippling, to be honest,” said Azmeh Dawood, the sister of Shahzada Dawood and aunt of Suleman Dawood. “I personally have found it kind of difficult to breathe thinking of them.”

The family of British explorer Hamish Harding wrote in a statement that, while they would mourn his loss deeply, they felt some consolation knowing that he died doing what he loved.

“He was one of a kind and we adored him. He was a passionate explorer — whatever the terrain — who lived his life for his family, his business and for the next adventure,” the family said in the statement. “What he achieved in his lifetime was truly remarkable and if we can take any small consolation from this tragedy, it’s that we lost him doing what he loved.”

The crew’s disappearance—and the voyage’s $250,000 per person price tag—has brought a spotlight to the growing and largely unregulated deep-sea tourism industry that is almost exclusively patronized by the ultrawealthy.

Rise of Deep-Sea Tourism

In recent years, underwater tourism has expanded beyond the average snorkeling or scuba-diving trip.

OceanGate, which began taking tourists on its Titanic tours in 2021, joins a growing number of underwater tourism experiences that expose travelers to the depths of the ocean—often for a steep price. In “Lovers Deep”, a luxury submarine hotel launched in 2014 , couples can circle the reefs of St. Lucia starting at around $300,000 a night. For those wanting less sticker shock, DeepflightAdventures and Four Seasons began offering in 2018 an hour-long tour along the Maldives in a super Falcon 3S submarine for $1,500.

“Extreme adventures used to be the domain of the lunatic fringe,” says Jon Heshka, an associate professor at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia whose research focuses on adventure studies “Now, in order to gain access to these remote areas of the world where governments impose permit fees and requirements … you really have to pay for it.”

OceanGate also offers other pricey experiences for “citizen explorers” looking to traverse the depths of the seas (via the same Titan vehicle that’s gone missing), including a three-day, two-night expedition to hydrothermal vents off the coast of Portugal that costs $250,000 and a Bahamas dive with tickets starting at $45,000.

Big Risks and Little Regulation

Deep-sea excursions, much like the buzzy “ space-tourism ” industry that has gained popularity in recent years, have few regulations in place. Extreme tourism, Heshka says, rarely finds itself facing government interference.

“The government won’t regulate until there’s a demonstrated need that industry has failed to self regulate. If things are humming along and the activities are being administered, more or less incident free, and businesses are making money and clients are willing to shell out the coin, there’s no need for the government to become involved,” says Heshka. “However, if there are particularly high profile incidents, then that becomes the business of the government to regulate.”

Read More: ‘Debris Field’ Found Near Titanic in the Search for Missing Titan Vessel

Some of the Titan’s former passengers have spoken out about the safety conditions on the submersible. A camera operator for Discovery Channel’s “Expedition Unknown,” Brian Weed did a test dive on the Titan in May 2021 and told NBC , “The moment we started the test dive, things started going wrong.” Mike Reiss, a writer and producer who has worked on “The Simpsons,” said that on all four dives he did with OceanGate, the crew lost communication with the host ship, according to ABC News . One passenger who was supposed to be on Sunday’s dive told Good Morning America he pulled out at the last minute because he feared for his safety.

In a 2019 blog post explaining why the company did not meet classification standards usually required of ocean vessels, OceanGate said that the company’s “new and innovative designs” could not yet be judged by existing regulatory standards. “By definition, innovation is outside of an already accepted system,” the company said. “However, this does not mean that OceanGate doesn’t meet standards where they apply, but it does mean that innovation often falls outside of the existing industry paradigm.”

The Titan’s passengers are required to sign a waiver that lists “physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death” as the potential risks, according to CBS reporter David Pogue, who boarded the sub last year . Mike Reiss, one of the submersible’s previous passengers, told the BBC that the waiver mentions death “three different times on page one.”

But Heshka says that such liability waivers are “ubiquitous” when it comes to extreme sports and activities, even for things as common as skiing.

“Canadian and American ski hills to varying degrees, administer waivers that will include in the list of hazards that could be encountered all the things that can go wrong on the mountain, like critical injury, paralysis and death.”

Most people tend to take the risks with a grain of salt. “People often sign these waivers not thinking they could actually die,” he says. “They signed a document that says they could, but their mind doesn’t go that far.”

When asked about the safety of the Titan submersible last year, Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s CEO, told CBS’s Pogue the risk was simply a part of life.“You know, there’s a limit. At some point safety just is pure waste. I mean if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk/reward question.”

—With reporting by Anna Gordon/London

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Space Travel and Deep-Ocean Exploration Are Becoming More Accessible

Travel to earth’s final frontiers is more possible than ever before, with exciting plans on the horizon. The question today isn’t whether you can actually get there anymore, but whether you can afford it.

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! >","name":"in-content-cta","type":"link"}}'>Download the app .

In 2020, former astronaut Kathy Sullivan descended nearly seven miles below the Pacific’s surface. When she touched down at a spot on the ocean floor known as Challenger Deep, in the depths of the Mariana Trench, the 68-year-old became the first person to visit both outer space and the deepest known part of the ocean. The next year, multimillionaire video-game developer Richard Garriott, now 61, became the first man to execute the same feat. (Garriott had purchased a trip to the International Space Station in 2008.)

Their rare distinction as intrepid explorers of distant frontiers may not remain unusual for long. Just as tour operators turned quests once reserved for explorers into potential destinations for anyone with the means (read: money)—climbing Mount Everest, treks to the North and South Poles, sailing trips around the world—today’s entrepreneurs are now building paths to the ocean’s depths and up to the stars. Say hello to tourism at the edge of existence.

Vacations in Space

American entrepreneur Dennis Tito kicked off space tourism in 2001 with his $20 million seat on a Russian rocket to the International Space Station. Several private astronauts have visited the ISS since, including four men who spent 12 days at the station last year as a part of NASA’s Private Astronauts Program. Their $55-million-a-seat visit helped mark the arrival of entirely modern space travel.

Elon Musk’s company SpaceX oversaw that first all-civilian ISS trip in April 2021, as well as the first first all-civilian orbit around the earth that September. Last year also saw billionaire Jeff Bezos make a suborbital sortie on a rocket built by his space company, Blue Origin, and next year, SpaceX plans to send Japanese billionaire and fashion mogul Yusaku Maezawa on the first-ever private moon orbit . Then there’s Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, a company taking reservations for suborbital microgravity flights, slated to start next year. Thousands have already shelled out for the $450,000 plane-like ride, which will start and end in New Mexico. The 90-minute experience will take travelers up 50,000 feet before boosting into space to experience a few minutes of microgravity.

SpaceX’s earth orbit was “the first purely tourist-oriented sightseeing flight,” says Rod Pyle, space historian and author of Space 2.0: How Private Spaceflight, a Resurgent NASA, and International Partners Are Creating a New Space Age . “That really draws a bright line for me that we’ve moved into space tourism at last after talking about it for decades.”

Purely private launches like this are still the minority of annual orbital launches—44 of the 146 orbital launches last year were entirely private, according to the analytics and engineering firm Bryce Tech —but the companies behind them are slashing the cost of spaceflight by increasing the number of trips and improving innovations like reusable rockets.

“How many people would be flying to Europe if they had to junk the plane after each flight?” asks Pyle.

This commercial-spaceflight boom enticed NASA to fund $415.6 million at the end of 2021 to private, established companies that can support the development of commercial destinations in space. This furthered the federal agency’s long march toward the  privatization of space travel. A congressional act in 2010 had essentially “ended the space-shuttle program and got the United States started on the commercial-cargo and crew paths,” says Paul Stimers, a commercial space lobbyist who worked on the legislation.

As a result, NASA funded millions to companies like Boeing and SpaceX to kick-start the transition and launched its own Commercial Crew Program to deepen these partnerships. Thanks to such efforts, the cost of reaching space has fallen significantly since increased privatization, says Phil McAlister, NASA’s director of commercial space flight.

Soon, however, a rocket won’t be your only avenue to the edge of the atmosphere. Starting in 2024, the Florida-based Space Perspectives and Arizona-based WorldView aim to take travelers up to 100,000 feet in pressurized capsules suspended from high-altitude balloons (which are more commonly used as weather balloons). At this height, riders will be able to see the earth’s atmosphere and 1,000 miles in every direction, according to WorldView.

There’s no microgravity aspect—a sensation triggered by free fall in flights like the $8,200 Zero-G Experience—as high-altitude balloons move slowly up and down; Space Perspective, for example, says its Spaceship Neptune rises at just 12 miles per hour. It’s not cheap, though: the ride will cost you $150,000, whereas WorldView, whose 2024 flights from the Grand Canyon and Great Barrier Reef are already sold out, charges $50,000 a seat.

As tourists line up to leave the planet, Orbital Assembly is working to greet them with humanity’s first private space center, Pioneer Station . The U.S. company is aiming to have mints on pillows as early as 2027. Pioneer Station is being built for both tourism and business. Bookings will be segmented into a tourist season, a business season, and one for both; this overlapping period could give space tourists opportunities to contribute to cutting-edge science, like bio- or pharmacological research, says Orbital Assembly CEO Rhonda Stevenson.

The microgravity accommodation will be formed by individual pods, called free-flyers, connected by steel trusses in a spoke-and-wheel formation. Any number of free-flyers can be hitched together to form a habitable space station; the current plan is for Pioneer Station to host between 28 and 54 guests. Meanwhile, Voyager Station , Orbital Assembly’s planned space hotel, could eventually host as many as 440 guests. Stevenson declined to give a price estimate for a stay at either station, but said a vacation there is likely to span between four days to two weeks and involve activities like microgravity sports.

Assuming adequate funding and launch availability are nailed down, she says they hope to send the first free-flyer to space in 2025. Orbital Assembly projects this sets the stage for a completed Pioneer Station by 2027 and other outposts like Voyager Station to be constructed by the end of the decade. The company is currently in conversation with several space travel providers to arrange transportation to its stations.

“It will be like you have a hotel but you can take any number of airlines to get to that place,” says Andrew Lavin, who oversees Orbital Assembly’s communications.

Despite how this all sounds—will it really pan out?—space experts view the project as more likely than science fiction. Orbital Assembly’s timelines are optimistic to Anita Gale, head of the National Space Society and a senior engineer with Boeing’s space program who previously worked on the space-shuttle program, but she thinks sometime in the 2030s is a sound expectation.

“For decades, the idea of space settlement had… let’s call it a giggle factor. In the technical community, that giggle factor is gone,” she says. “We can talk about living in space, and engineers who are in touch with what’s going on in these spaces are saying, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna do it.’ It’s a question of when, but it is inevitable. We will be doing business in space.”

Deep-Sea Tourism

Going to great depths in the ocean has never seen the public zeal or government support of space travel. While a flurry of rockets reached the moon in the years immediately following the Apollo 11 landing in 1969, more than five decades passed between the first and second visit to Challenger Deep.

Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard were the first people to hit the ocean bottom, in 1960, recording a depth of more than 35,000 feet in a submersible called the Trieste during a U.S. Navy research mission. Famed film director James Cameron became the second person to visit Challenger Deep—in 2012. But both the Trieste and Cameron’s submersible sustained damage during their expeditions and could not make repeat trips. Then along came Victor Vescovo , a private-equity investor and retired naval commander, in the possibility-redefining submersible  Limiting Factor .

His groundbreaking vessel, built by Florida-based Triton Submersibles, has been the first to repeatedly visit the ocean bottom at such remarkable depths, allowing Vescovo to descend to Challenger Deep an astounding 15 times, become the first person to reach the deepest point in every ocean, and probe the world’s deepest shipwreck sites.

“It’s the Model T Ford of Hadal submersibles,” says Rob McCallum, CEO of EYOS Expeditions, which handles the logistics of Vescovo’s adventures. “It’s the pathfinder to the last frontier of exploration.” (On earth, anyway.)

More than a dozen people visited the trench and conducted scientific experiments with Vescovo, some on donated trips and others thanks to a $750,000 Mission Specialist expedition contribution, making them the first group of travelers to personally pay for a ride to the bottom of the Pacific. Going forward, however, Limiting Factor will be used purely for science under new ownership.

Travelers have also made the deep dive down to the Titanic —nearly 2.5 miles underwater in the North Atlantic—with OceanGate Expeditions . The company has taken more than 30 travelers from Newfoundland to the wreck over the past two years and is currently accepting 2023 reservations for its eight-day adventure. A $250,000 per-person fee helps underwrite the voyage, during which participants support scientists and researchers in the documentation of the rapidly decaying shipwreck and its surrounding environment. They contribute underwater or topside, working on tasks that range from conducting sonar scans from the sub to servicing the vessel post-dive.

“There are very, very few sites that get visited more than once, when you get down to this kind of depth,” says OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. But because people will pay to go to the Titanic , his company can make trips there every year. “The scientists are pretty excited, because you just don’t get that opportunity.” Previous expeditions produced the first 8K video footage of the Titanic (see video below), discovered an undocumented deep-sea reef and nearby wreck, and gathered data on environmental DNA and coral growth rates for future analysis.

If a trip down to the Titanic  in a submersible seems too much for you, OceanGate is planning less intensive options for interested ocean explorers in late 2023 and 2024: a one-day dip off Grand Bahama—starting at a cool $45,000—to support University of the Bahamas research in a deepwater basin, or an exploration of Puget Sound in Washington that costs $20,000, a tab that can be split between you and three friends.

Other wealthy travelers are skipping organized trips altogether, opting instead to play beneath the waves in their own submarines and submersibles. Submersibles are typically deployed from a large boat as, unlike submarines, they cannot maneuver at the surface. They are also substantially smaller—small enough, in fact, to fit on the deck of a luxury yacht.

“There’s lots and lots of yachts that have submersibles on board,” says Bill Streever, a former commercial diver and author of In Oceans Deep: Courage, Innovation, and Adventure Beneath the Waves . The demand for such vessels within the research community largely disappeared with the advent of underwater drones, he says, explaining: “It just didn’t make sense to put human beings down to do what a robot can do without any risk.” So submersible companies went looking for a new market and quickly found one in superyacht owners.

Such owners are “looking for the next big thing, and exploring the unknown is the ultimate big thing,” says Roy Heijdra, marketing manager at U-Boat Worx , a Norwegian company that began building submersibles for yachts 16 years ago. U-Boat Worx’s submersibles regularly descend to 1,000 feet, near the deep end of the ocean’s twilight zone; custom builds can be made to descend as much as 10,000 feet; and its five-to-eleven-passenger Cruise Series can explore more than a mile below the surface.

The basic one-seater NEMO model, small enough to tow behind a car, starts at approximately $543,000. Don’t want to commit to full ownership? Try a time-share: the brand’s new shared-ownership program , rolling out next year in the Caribbean and the South of France, will offer training and partial ownership of a sub for about $154,000.

These vessels are already popular with the cruise crowd.

“Before 2023, there will be 33 newly built expedition cruise ships on the market,” says Heijdra, and “most of these cruise ships will have one or two of our cruise subs on board.” Crystal, Seabourn, and Viking are among the cruise-liner companies with vessels already carrying at least one U-Boat Worx submersible. And you don’t have to be a cruise passenger to get a taste of a U-Boat Worx experience: its Substation Curaçao, based on the Caribbean island, offers experiences from the harbor down to 450 feet for as little as $350.

If that’s not luxurious enough, what about a full-blown private submarine? No longer the exclusive domain of the military, the Norwegian company Ocean Submarine can build you your own custom vessel, complete with a library, bedroom, chairs with leather seats, a full kitchen, trained crew, and more. Too large to be launched from even mega-yachts, these often set off from private beaches, says Ocean Submarine CEO Martin van Eijk. They are rated to more than half a mile deep.

Ocean Submarine sold six private subs between 2010 and 2020. Then demand spiked, and the company received upward of 120 inquiries from potential customers during the first year of the pandemic. “We have a lot of clients who [are] interested in something where you can safely go down under, have your own eco-assistance and control systems for all the air,” says Van Eijk.

For some deep-sea travelers, this exploration is merely a prelude to space travel. OceanGate has partnered with several space-tourism organizations to provide preflight training to the starstruck among us.

“You’re in a capsule with some people in a life-threatening or potentially dangerous environment,” says OceanGate’s Rush. “If they want to go to space, a good training exercise is [to] put them in a setup where they’re in there with four other people for 12 hours, two and a half miles away from anything. If they’re going to lose it, that’s where they’ll lose it.”

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Sound at sea, sargassum buries beaches and threatens tourism

Keeping Florida's shoreline beautiful has long resulted in interesting piles of trash with, inevitability, a kitchen sink found somewhere among the mangroves.

Now there is a menace that buries everything else, yet needs to be cleaned up all the same: Deep piles of sargassum, a yellow-brown seaweed normally stuck out in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, are finding a way to foul many Southeast Florida beaches and Caribbean islands.

Tourism types are terrified.

Marshall Washington runs the Ron Jon Surf shop in Key West, just blocks from a beach where the stinky seaweed beached itself last year.

“It sucked. It was terrible. It was terrible,” he said. “There were times when it was really bad. Piles of about at least a foot and a half. The main beaches were hit pretty hard; certain days there were, pretty much, like nobody going to them.”

Researchers predict the return of sargassum to the eastern side of the Florida Keys later this month or in May. Washington is not happy.

“Last year was just not cool. Not cool at all,” he said. “I'm not looking forward to this year.”

'Great sargassum belt'

Millions of tons of yellow-brown algae have been swirling about in a region of the tropical Atlantic known as the Sargasso Sea. With no land in sight, ocean currents have been making the sargassum do figure-eights for centuries, the massive mats of algae suspended at the surface by its own air bladders.

In 2011, a massive amount of sargassum broke free and headed west. Scientists are not in agreement as to why

Modern-day credit for discovering the huge wayward mats of sargassum goes to satellites, which first detected the mats breaking free from centuries of doing donuts through the waves in their Atlantic Ocean parking lot.

The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt was coined by scientists about the same time that oceanographer Ajit Subramaniam, who has run scientific research expeditions in the South Atlantic for 25 years, is credited for first coming across the endless blotches of sargassum in 2018 during one of his expeditions.

It has been growing at such a rate as to alarm scientists. Two years ago, the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt grew to a combined 24.2 million tons — about four times the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza — and it was recognized as the largest macroalgae bloom in the world.

After the sargassum died back that winter, it regrew in 2023 to a swath that stretched some 5,000 miles long and 300 miles wide, extending from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico and weighed in at some 13 million tons.

The Optical Oceanography Laboratory at USF’s College of Marine Science tracks the sargassum under a $3 million grant it shares to use satellites to better predict where the massive mats will come ashore throughout the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

USF’s Sargassum Watch reports the belt has regrown this summer to 9 million tons so far, and it is expected to continue to grow to near-record levels by the fall.

That doesn’t mean you have to cancel your vacation to Barbados.

“One thing to know about the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt is not just one contiguous mass that's going to come and swallow the entire Caribbean and Florida,” said USF’s Brian Barnes, a lead sargassum researcher.

But it can bury your favorite beach. To get a heads up, Barnes is working on a tracking system that uses satellites in ways that can better predict where it is headed.

“We can identify the sargassum and know where the water is moving and thus where the sargassum will be moving and make some predictions on which beaches will be impacted.”

‘Very nice ecosystem’

Each floating mass of sargassum is its own remarkably beneficial ecosystem.

Sargassum mats provide food, refuge, and breeding grounds for fish, sea turtles, marine birds, crabs, and shrimp. The seaweed is packed with nutrition, belches oxygen, and sucks up enough carbon that it is notable in the fight against global warming.

The sargassum fish has adapted to look like its floating protector. The strange-looking flat fish with lots of fins knows of no other existence than within the nooks and crannies of the sargassum mat where it lives its entire life. It ambushes its prey, eats its own, and when being preyed upon leaps up out of the water and comes to rest atop the mass of seaweed, where it can live for far longer than its underwater stalker retains interest.

Scientists have discovered 110 animals that favor life within the seaweed including ten endemic species that live nowhere else on Earth. Sargassum’s wealth of riches draws game fish, creating a commercial fishery worth $100 million a year.

Barry Rosen, a seaweed expert at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, calls the sargassum migration a normal, healthy environmental fact of ocean life.

“It is a mass of living organisms pumping oxygen into the air,” he said. “It's a very nice ecosystem, and it typically doesn't cause a problem.”

Until it does. And that is when it hits land.

'A devastating mainstay'

The Mexican federal government is building four sargassum-collecting vessels costing around $783,500 each it hopes will work to help protect its Caribbean coast from sargassum.

Hotels between Cancun and Puerto Morelos reported spending around $200,000 each on wages for beach clean-up personnel and transporting seaweed to disposal sites after the 2018 sargassum surge

Midsized hotels with large beachfronts are estimated to be spending thousands of dollars a day on removal, if not more, during peak moments

Records show the cleanup costs for sargassum were about $3.5 million in the greater Miami-Dade County area in 2019 and $120 million in the Caribbean in 2018.

The City of Key West spends about $1 million annually on sargassum cleanup, with more in reserve just in case. Even though the beaches are tiny in Key West, tourists rule.

Miami-Dade County, which spent more than $3.9 million on sargassum cleanup last year, has requested an additional $2 million from the state for upcoming cleanup efforts.

While USF and others are using grant money to determine where sargassum will go, Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute has received a $1.3 million grant from the Florida Department of Emergency Management to assess how to best dispose of the seaweeds once it has arrived.

Problems abound when sargassum isn’t cleaned up right away, not the least of which is the hydrogen sulfide it emits.

“Sargassum is becoming a devastating mainstay in parts of Florida’s coastal communities, particularly in the Florida Keys, where massive blooms continue to recur,” Brian Lapointe, algae bloom expert at FAU, told the university’s magazine. “Economically, a ‘severe’ sargassum event could have more than a $20 million impact in just the Keys alone.”

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Tourist drowns and 130 people are evacuated as Tenerife is battered by freak storms and 16ft waves

• The 53-year-old Czech tourist fell into the rough sea at the northern resort of Puerto de la Cruz and drowned despite efforts to save him

A tourist died and at least 130 people had to be evacuated as Tenerife was hit by freak storms.

The island is today mopping up after coastal areas saw waves of more than 16 feet smash into sea walls and sweep water into houses and businesses.

The person who died, a 53-year-old Czech tourist, fell into the rough sea at the northern resort of Puerto de la Cruz and drowned despite efforts to save him.

It is believed he was taking pictures of the dramatic surf in the natural pools on the sea edge when he was swept away.

Horrified witnesses saw his body in the water and called the emergency services.

He was eventually picked up by a helicopter and taken back to land but could not be revived.

READ MORE:  Tenerife locals say they 'are living in CAVES' and life on the island is 'COLLAPSING' due to tourism 'cancer that is consuming the island bit by bit' 

The Directorate General of Emergencies of the Government of the Canary Islands has issued a statement urging the public to take extreme precautions, especially near the sea, although the official alert for the freak waves was lifted this morning.

Tenerife officials said people from some 60 houses were evacuated Wednesday, adding that waves reached some 16 feet in several areas. 

Yesterday's storm caused damage to vehicles, boats and more than 15 homes in the east of the island.

Ironically, a change of weather today will see Tenerife 'roast like an oven' as temperatures soar into the mid-30s.

The Canaries were already on alert for high temperatures, the presence of haze, gusts of wind of 55 miles per hour and forest fires.

However, the very strong waves took residents of Tenerife by surprise with homes and streets flooded. Many said they did not 'remember anything like it in years.'

Weather experts said the combination of the strong gusts of wind, together with the spring tides due to the full moon, caused the sea to wash over beaches, promenades and roads close to the coastline.

The areas in Tenerife most affected were El Rosario, Candelaria, Arafo, Güímar and Arico, all along the east coast.

The most popular holiday resorts in the south of Tenerife escaped damage.

The weather agency, Aemet says Tenerife's capital of Santa Cruz in the north will record the highest temperature in Spain at around 33 degrees.

Four people from different countries died last month after falling into the sea during bad weather on mainland Spain.

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Moscow metro to be more tourist-friendly

A new floor sign system at the Moscow metro's Pushkinskaya station. Source: Vladimir Pesnya / RIA Novosti

For many years now, Moscow has lagged behind St. Petersburg when it comes to making life easy for tourists, especially where getting around the city is concerned. Whereas the northern capital installed English-language maps, signs and information points throughout its subway system in the late 2000s, the Russian capital’s metro remained a serious challenge for foreign visitors to navigate.

Recent visitors to Moscow may have noticed some signs that change is afoot, however. In many stations of the Moscow subway, signs have appeared on the floor – with large lettering in Russian and English – indicating the direction to follow in order to change lines. Previously, foreign visitors using the Moscow metro had to rely solely upon deciphering the Russian-language signs hanging from the ceilings.

Student volunteers help tourists find their way in Moscow

However, this new solution has a significant drawback. “The floor navigation is visible only to a small stream of people – fewer than three people per meter. During peak hours, this navigation will simply not be noticed,” said Konstantin Trofimenko, Director of the Center for Urban Transportation Studies.

One of the biggest problems for tourists in the Russian capital remains the absence of English translations of the names of subway stations in the station vestibules and on platforms. The Department of Transportation in Moscow has not commented yet as to when this problem will be solved. However, Latin transliterations of station names can already be found in the subway cars themselves.

Finding the right exit

At four of the central stations – Okhotny Ryad, Teatralnaya, Ploshchad Revolyutsii, Lubyanka and Kuznetsky Most – the city authorities have now installed colorful stands at the exits with schematic diagrams of the station’s concourse and surrounding area, which provide information about the main attractions and infrastructural facilities.

The schematic diagrams are the work of British specialists from the City ID and Billings Jackson Design firms, who have already implemented successful projects in New York and London.

According to Alexei Novichkov, expert at the Design Laboratory at the Higher School of Economics, the design of these information booths raises no objections: The color solutions, font, layout and icons are consistent with international standards.

However, the stands do have some shortcomings. “Many questions are raised about the fact that the developers of these maps did not apply orientation to the north, and have provided layouts of the surrounding areas with respect to the exits,” says Novichkov. “A system like that is used for road navigators, but most of the ‘paper’ guides and maps are oriented strictly to north. The subway map is also oriented to north, so people may become confused.”

Muscovites and foreign visitors are generally positive about these navigation elements, with most of them citing the numbered exits from the subway as the most useful feature.

The fact is that many Moscow subway stations have several exits. One of the busiest central stations of the Moscow subway in particular, Kitay-Gorod, has more than a dozen exits. Previously, these exits were differentiated from each other only with signs in Russian referring to the names of streets and places of interest to which they led – making it easy for tourists and those with poor navigation skills to get confused.

Now, when making an appointment to meet a friend, instead of struggling to find the right spot when they tell you: “I'll meet you at the exit to Solyanka Street,” you can just propose to meet under a specific exit number.

“I’ve lived in Moscow for seven years,” says Angelika, a designer from Voronezh, “but I still don’t always know where to go to find the place I need, so the new schematic diagrams will be very useful. Previously, some subway stations had maps, but not with so much detail.”

Teething problems

Foreigners, meanwhile, focus their attention on other elements. “It is good that the new information boards have QR-codes, which can be ‘read’ by smartphones,” says Florentina, a writer from Vienna. But there are also shortcomings. “The English font of the information on posters and in the captions to theaters and museums is too small – you have to come very close to see it well,” she says.

Pleasant encounters on the streets of Moscow

Florentina was also dissatisfied with the fact that such posters are not provided at all subway stations: “When I was trying to find Tsaritsyno Park (a museum and reserve in the south of Moscow) at a subway station with the same name, it turned out to be quite difficult,” she says.

“There are no maps with landmarks for other areas, such as those already in the city center. There were no clear pointers in the English language, and the passers-by I met did not speak in English, so they could not help me,” she adds.

Officials say that the navigation system is gradually being redeveloped and improved. According to Darya Chuvasheva, a press representative for the Department of Transport of Moscow, the introduction of a unified navigation system will take place in stages.

“By the end of 2014, the system will first appear on the first subway stations on the Circle Line. By the end of 2015, we plan to install the system at all major stopping points, subway stations and transport interchange hubs,” says Chuvasheva.

All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

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Doug Alberg visited Monino in July 1999 . He has several galleries of his pictures from that visit.

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Man dies after falling into sea while taking photos of huge waves in Canary Islands

A Czech tourist has died after falling into the sea while apparently taking photographs of huge waves during a storm on the Canary Island of Tenerife

MADRID -- A Czech tourist died after falling into the sea while apparently taking photographs of huge waves during a storm on the Canary Island of Tenerife, authorities said Thursday.

A Canary Island local government statement said the 53-year-old man died Wednesday afternoon in the town of Puerto de la Cruz. Rescue services retrieved the man from the sea but he died shortly afterwards.

Authorities had warned of possible flooding in coastal areas due to stormy seas around the island in the Atlantic, a popular vacation destination for many Europeans. The government had urged people to take precaution in dock or breakwater areas and to avoid coastal roads and nautical sports.

Tenerife officials said people from some 60 houses were evacuated Wednesday, adding that waves reached some five meters (16 feet) in several areas.

Four people from different countries died last month after falling into the sea during bad weather on mainland Spain .

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Tourist dies after falling into sea in Tenerife - as footage shows extreme waves battering coast

Paramedics attempted to resuscitate him while he was transferred to a helipad where a doctor was standing by to offer further care, but he died a few minutes later.

By Connor Sephton, News reporter @ConnorSephton

Thursday 11 April 2024 14:23, UK

A tourist has died after falling into the sea in Tenerife.

It's believed the 53-year-old man was trying to take photographs of huge waves during a storm in Puerto de la Cruz on Wednesday afternoon.

Footage posted by the emergency services showed an air ambulance attempting to rescue him as water crashed on the coastline.

The Czech national was recovered from the sea during high tide but was already in cardiac arrest.

Officials in the Canary Islands had urged the public to take precautions near the sea because of the extreme weather.

Footage posted by the police on social media showed how strong waves have caused significant damage in coastal areas.

More on Canary Islands

Popular destination for British holiday makers 'collapsing socially and environmentally'

British baby dies and family members injured in Lanzarote crash

Spain says more than 1,000 migrants reach Canary Islands in three days after record crossings in 2023

Related Topics:

• Canary Islands

Rocks and debris were seen strewn across the beachfront - with homes flooded after surging water tore off doors.

Read more from Sky News: 85-year-old woman kills masked intruder People report feeling unwell after farm visit

More than a dozen homes and about 40 people were evacuated in Tenerife because of the treacherous conditions.

Local politicians have pointed to the storm as evidence that climate change is here to stay - and are vowing to introduce preventative measures to protect properties in the future.

Flood alerts across the Canary Islands were lifted on Thursday morning.

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Czech man dies after falling into sea while taking photos of huge waves in Spain’s Canary Islands

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A Czech tourist died after falling into the sea while apparently taking photographs of huge waves during a storm on the Canary Island of Tenerife, authorities said Thursday.

A Canary Island local government statement said the 53-year-old man died Wednesday afternoon in the town of Puerto de la Cruz. Rescue services retrieved the man from the sea but he died shortly afterwards.

Authorities had warned of possible flooding in coastal areas due to stormy seas around the island in the Atlantic, a popular vacation destination for many Europeans. The government had urged people to take precaution in dock or breakwater areas and to avoid coastal roads and nautical sports.

Tenerife officials said people from some 60 houses were evacuated Wednesday, adding that waves reached some five meters (16 feet) in several areas.

Four people from different countries died last month after falling into the sea during bad weather on mainland Spain.

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Czech man dies after falling into sea while taking photos of huge waves in Spain’s Canary Islands

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MADRID (AP) — A Czech tourist died after falling into the sea while apparently taking photographs of huge waves during a storm on the Canary Island of Tenerife, authorities said Thursday.

A Canary Island local government statement said the 53-year-old man died Wednesday afternoon in the town of Puerto de la Cruz. Rescue services retrieved the man from the sea but he died shortly afterwards.

Authorities had warned of possible flooding in coastal areas due to stormy seas around the island in the Atlantic, a popular vacation destination for many Europeans. The government had urged people to take precaution in dock or breakwater areas and to avoid coastal roads and nautical sports.

Tenerife officials said people from some 60 houses were evacuated Wednesday, adding that waves reached some five meters (16 feet) in several areas.

Four people from different countries died last month after falling into the sea during bad weather on mainland Spain.