20,000 Panic Attacks Under the Sea

The Atlantic salutes Peter Rona, the recently deceased explorer and deep sea scientist who happily descended on the regular to 12,000 feet, making it his life’s work to investigate what is, to me, the worst imaginable nightmare:

You are in a metal sphere that is not much wider than your outstretched arms. It is uncomfortable, cramped and cold and there are no facilities. You can’t hear any noise from the ocean, but you do hear the noise of the sub. The fan of the air scrubber drones as it takes carbon dioxide out of the air and as oxygen is released from cylinders so we can breathe.

Descending into the ocean is sheer excitement. There are three tiny windows. One up front is for the pilot and two to either side are for observation. We bring down sandwiches as we can be in the subs for up to 20 hours. Soda is prohibited because it releases carbon dioxide that would throw the meters off scale. If you need to go to the bathroom there are containers for urination. So if you want to be comfortable, don’t eat or drink before a dive.

As the dive progresses, it becomes colder because the temperature of the deep ocean outside is close to freezing and penetrates the metal hull, so you bundle up. If the sea is rough on top it takes a while to be recovered and at worst it can feel like you are in a washing machine. But I have never been frightened.

I have never been frightened. I, on the other hand, screamed at my computer just looking at this Google image search for “deep ocean creatures.” Bless you, Peter Rona, and RIP.