In Part 1 of this interview with explorer Victor Vescovo, we discussed his world record dive to Challenger Deep at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Here, Vescovo tells us what he found down there: life and, unfortunately, trash as well.
Jim Clash: There are reports that you saw trash at the bottom of Challenger Deep?
Victor Vescovo: I’m not quite sure what it was. One of the items looked like a square. It could have been plastic. It definitely wasn’t metal. It just looked like trash. The other item looked like a triangle. It had a sharp edge, so it was definitely man-made. It also had a discernable imprint of a stylized “s,” and it looked like a container of some sort. It probably was plastic, but I don’t know for sure. You’ll see in the media that someone put out there that I saw a plastic bag or a candy wrapper. Some reporter just threw in his imagination. But it’s not exactly what I saw. It could have been, but it was less discernable than that. But it was definitely man-made contamination. And it was not small.
Clash: How did that make you feel?
Vescovo: It was a bit of a disappointment and a letdown. Because when I saw it, I had been cruising along the bottom of the Mariana Trench for several hours looking for wildlife – and seeing it – and seeing tracks, and then trying to figure stuff out from a biological or geological perspective. It was unmistakable when it came into the corner of my eye: That is man-made because you can see the sharp edges. It didn’t look like anything natural. In the pit of your stomach, it’s almost like someone punched you a little bit. You’re like, ‘Really. I mean, the Challerger Deep. Can there be one place on Earth that is so remote that it is not touched by contamination? The answer is, no it’s not, Victor. And you’ll have to tell people, and maybe that will help.
Clash: What kind of wildlife did you see down there?
Vescovo: There had been a little bit of representation where people drecribe the bottom of the Mariana Trench as lifeless, moonlike, there’s nothing there. That’s not at all the case. In fact, quite quickly I saw what scientists call a Holorrhena, which is a version of a sea cucumber or sea pig. It was completely translucent. It had little eyes on its stalks. At first, I thought it was a carcass, something from higher up that had died and went to the bottom. But after I looked at it for a second, I thought, ‘That’s moving. And it’s not me moving it. It was undulating ever so gently. I think it felt the current from the submarine, and was just trying to get away. Life on the bottom was sparse. But it was there. That was really satisfying, because here we were at 16,000 PSI, a couple of degrees above freezing and, as Michael Creighton says in his books, “Life finds a way.” That was beautiful proof that no matter how things go, life will keep chugging along and figure out a way to stay intact.
Part 1: Businessman Victor Vescovo Sets New World Depth Record For Mariana Trench Dive
(Editor’s Note: In Part 3 of this interview series with explorer Victor Vescovo, Vescovo will tell us what is next for him.)
