Sunday, October 5, 2008

Yet, another dream

The sinking of the Titanic has been a magnet to underwater ship-explorers. Even in 1912, after the Titanic sank, there was talk of trying to find her. They soon found out they really didn’t know where she was when she sank, nor how deep it was where she hit bottom.
But as the years went on, so did technology towards underwater exploration. Many different groups of people set out to find the great wreck, but all still came back empty-handed.
Not until July of 1985 did the American and French research team find the wreck. Once again the Titanic made world news, and once again she was in the spotlight. Now that the ship was found, it raised possibilities of going down in a small submarine that could withstand the deep-sea pressure. Exactly one year later, Bob Ballard and two other undersea explorers went, for the first time, down to the wreck. There was doubt in the minds of those going down to the wreck; they still didn’t know that the ship had broken in two. They didn’t know what to expect, what if all the rigging was intact, that would create a great hazard to maneuvering about the ship. Would the Titanic even be recognizable? Or would she be sitting perfect on the ocean floor?
As Bob Ballard and the other researchers reached the ocean floor, they tried to locate the Titanic. The submersible they were using, the Alvin, sprang a leak in her batteries. Now they only had a couple of minutes on the ocean bed and they had not seen the Titanic. Peering through the small portholes of the Alvin, a massive wall of black steel loomed up right in front of them, that was the only glimpse of the ship they got that time. The leak in the batteries would become critical if they didn’t surface.
Since July 1986, numerous dives have been made to the Titanic. Several people have spent more time with the Titanic underwater, than the Captain spent with her on the seas.
One thing is certain; the Titanic is in a state of complete devastation. The ship broke in two in between the third and fourth funnels; and all of those funnels are gone. In one square mile there are boilers, teacups, beds, tables, engines, wine bottles, suitcases, chairs, and the list could go on.
The beauty of the ship is now gone, her once proud hull glimmering in the bright sunlight, now is encrusted in rusting steel. Where her four behemoth funnels stood are now just gaping holes on top of the ship. Her once proud stern, the beauty of the ship, where at the end of Titanic’s short life, men and women alike met their fate, now lays almost unrecognizable due too the impact that she suffered when she hit the ocean floor.
There she will sit until countless ages have taken their toll on her, and there is nothing left but small piles of dust in the salty water.
Men will probably always go to her to seek just one more fact, something nobody else knows. Titanic may be sitting 2 ½ miles below the surface of the sea, but ask anyone what the most well known and famous shipwreck is, and they’ll tell you, it is the Titanic.
The Titanic will never be forgotten. She will always be alive in history.
Even though the Titanic is one among the many sea wrecks that litter the ocean floor, she still, to this day captivates the minds of underwater explorers, historians, and people like me. What more can be said? Titanic is still truly a great ship.

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