8:00 a.m. — Most of the Mir team has been up well into the night working out final dive preparations. The tech crew reports that they successfully sent a signal from the Mir sub, through the three miles of fiber-optic cable on a spool, to the RHIB, over the microwave transmitter, and to the studio on a lower deck of the
Keldysh. This is a positive sign.
Dr. Sagalevitch reports that bad weather is due to arrive Wednesday night. There are still a few camera and lighting issues remaining, but James Cameron and the team decide to press on for a morning launch of the submersibles and the first dive of the expedition with the hope that we can get in one dive today and one tomorrow, even if one has to be abbreviated.
At a briefing led by Cameron after the Mir meeting, the team goes over final operational issues in detail. Satellite communications are still inoperable, so communications with the mainland are badly restricted. If we can dive, bring the signal to the surface, record and edit, then we are still on mission, even if we cannot get material back to Discovery. So we press on and prepare to dive. The satellite engineers will pursue an emergency airdrop to remedy the situation.
Noon — After several hours of final preparations we are go for launch.
1:30 p.m. — The crew for Mir 1 boards the sub. Pilot Genya Cherniaev is a highly skilled deep diver who has likely spent more time at the bottom of the sea, and specifically at the Titanic wreck, than any other person alive. He is accompanied by Ken Marschall, an engineer, maritime artist and Titanic historian, who will act as navigator along the wreck. Third is cinematographer and marine explorer Mike DeGruy, who, among his many credentials, can list certified shark victim. A decade or so ago he was bitten on the arm by a gray reef shark while conducting research in the Marshall Islands.
2:00 p.m. — As Mir 1 pilot Cherniaev begins the long descent to the wreck, engineer extraordinaire Ron Allum — who has designed and built most of the hardware and television technology for this expedition — conducts a critical test on Mir 2 ordered by Cameron. Before the team descends trailing fiber-optic cable, Ron tests the hydraulic cable cutter he has installed on the outside of the sub.
A very real danger is that if the cable were to snag anywhere on the bottom of the sea or on the wreck, the sub would effectively be anchored on the bottom and the crew would have no way to free the sub. To cope with that potentially deadly circumstance, Ron has two plans in place. First, while the cable itself has a breaking strength of more than 500 pounds from the surface to the bottom to deal with its own weight, the current and potential strain between boats, once the sub is at the bottom, the crew will pay out the heavy cable until they reach a much lighter cable for bottom operations. That cable has a breaking strength of 80 pounds, which the sub could break by employing its thrusters. The second plan is to cut the cable with the cutters.
The test goes well; Ron's cutters sever both the heavy and the light cable cleanly twice on the first efforts. Cameron is satisfied that if the worst should happen, the sub can free itself.
3:00 p.m. — Cameron meets with his boat crew in the dining room to discuss final dive operations. The plan calls for a swimmer to retrieve the cable from the sub once it's in the water and bring it to Prime RHIB, which is equipped to take the signal in from the bottom and transmit by microwave signal back to mission control onboard the Keldysh. Today's dive will be the first true test of this ambitious plan.
3:30 p.m. — As the team prepares for the launch of Mir 2 there is a welcome change in the weather. The chilly wind dies down and the sea goes as flat as it's been since we arrived. Just as it does, a pod of 10 or so pilot whales appears off the port quarter. From my cabin portlight I can see another pod approaching from a few miles to our south. They surface with a rhythmic calm that is soothing to observe. It's possible that our friendly visitors were there all along but obscured by the swells. On the flatter sea, we are suddenly not alone.
4:30 p.m. — The team is experiencing a few delays in the launch of Mir 2. Setting up the communication between the capsule and the ROVs housed in "garages" on the front of the sub is proving to be problematic.
8:00 p.m. — After more than a year of preparation, Mir 2, equipped with the technology to send live video back from the ocean bottom, is ready for launch. James Cameron, Dr. Anatoly Sagalevitch and a young archaeologist from Florida named Michael Arbuthnot, man the sub as the hatch is sealed. The huge crane on the starboard boat deck lifts the 10-ton sub up and over the rail and into the sea.
The tender Koresh quickly pulls the sub away from the Keldysh, then a brave Russian swimmer known as the "cowboy" jumps from a small inflatable boat. The cowboy releases the sub from the crane and the Koresh tows it farther from the ship. Once away, commercial diver Kelvin Magee approaches the stern of the sub to retrieve the tail end of the fiber-optic cable. He pulls it to Prime RHIB, where Dave Cameron snakes it to the spool and hooks it up. After a moment of apprehension, the signal is visible in master control. Mir 2 descends into the sea almost precisely as a wondrous sunset develops in the western sky.
The link works! We have video. The television team in mission control cannot contain their excitement as they can see separate feeds from inside the sub and from cameras outside the sub focused on the spool as it pays out cable. Communication is perfect. In the Mir lab, the Russian engineers are equally excited. Whatever skepticism they may have harbored over tethering the sub, after they worked years to develop the technology to safely dive deep without a tether, seems to be gone now. For the first time, they can see their expedition leader, Sagalevitch, as he pilots the sub deeper and deeper.
9:30 p.m. — The spool stops spinning as the team tries a maneuver to reduce the arc in the cable. Dave Cameron pilots Prime RHIB closer to the point of descent as the sub continues downward.
9:52 p.m. — Cameron notices a problem. The cable appears to be snagged on the wing of the sub. After several tries at freeing it, the cable appears to be normal again ... and then ... in an instant: TOTAL SIGNAL LOSS.
10:00 p.m. — Attention now turns to the safety of Cameron and the sub crew. The state of the cable on the sub is unknown. The risks are all too real. Communication with mission control is now impossible. All monitors are black. We get word from the Russian Mir navigation team that Dr. Anatoly Sagalevitch is bringing the sub back to the surface. Communication with the RHIB is also lost, so it remains in place, keeping its end of the cable, now likely cut at the sub, afloat. There is nothing we can do but wait for the sub to resurface.
12:30 a.m. — With only spotty communications with Mir 2 by acoustic through-the-water signals, we are all relieved to see the lights of Mir 2 on the surface about a mile away. At the same time a half moon rises, creating a welcome glow across the quiet sea. The Keldysh steams to get closer as the RHIBs approach the sub. Its lights below the water reveal the pure blue that only the open ocean possesses. Diver Kelvin Magee swims to the sub to free it from the snagged fiber-optic cable. It's nearly an hour of careful maneuvering before Mir 2 is alongside the Keldysh, hooked to the crane by the cowboy, and hoisted aboard.
1:20 a.m. — James Cameron emerges from Mir 2 in exceptionally good cheer, especially considering that he did not get a chance to explore the wreck and, for a time, his life was at risk. He offers a hearty handshake and we share our excitement at how great this will be once we get the fiber all the way to the bottom. For the time we had it, the video signal was superb and the comms were flawless. The system works! Now we need to perfect getting it to the wreck. As fellow filmmakers — he, the director of the most successful movie of all time and me, happy to be in the business at all — we both understand the potential in what we experienced on this particular evening. The difficulty is precisely what makes it worth the time and effort.
As it turns out, it appears that the fiber snagged on the sub when too much slack was paid out by the RHIB. When Jim correctly hit the switch to cut the cable, it wasn't long before Anatoly's starboard thruster sucked up the tail and fouled. This left the sub firmly connected to the thin but strong cable. As Anatoly brought the sub to the surface, Dave Cameron spooled in the cable on the RHIB, effectively reeling his world-renowned brother back to the surface. Jim's resolute enthusiasm upon his return inspired us all. Tomorrow we hope to dive again.
2:00 a.m. — The deck crew awaits the return of Mir 1 and its crew from the bottom, where they have patiently waited for the arrival of Mir 2. They have spent more than 12 hours in a tiny capsule not much bigger than NASA's early Gemini spacecraft. The similarity between space travel and ocean exploration is driven home for me. During the production of Black Sky, our Peabody award-winning film that documented the first private space flights outside our atmosphere, the engineering team confronted many of the same challenges. In some ways, this mission is even more perilous. Zero gravity may actually present less danger than the 6,000 PSI (pound per square inch) of pressure our team must cope with at the bottom of the sea.
Stephen Reverand is Executive Producer and Vice President of Special Projects for Discovery Channel.
More Expedition Logs: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 | Day 12 |
