History explorer Richard Garriott describes his extraordinary dive to the most remote place on the planet – and then takes a selfie while down there.
Garriott landed gently at the foot of the Mariana trench and took the world’s deepest selfie.
Shockingly, he found garbage left by a previous Chinese expedition and took video of small translucent creatures pushing on the ocean floor.
The British-born Garriott became the only man in the world to fly into space, reach both the North and South Poles, and pay a visit to the bottom of the Earth.
He said: “It was a descent into darkness in the true sense of the word.
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‘And even if it’s a four-hour journey downhill, you go down fast.
‘When we got downstairs, I saw his monstrous long cable now lying over the seabed. It was very sad.
‘On the way back to the top I see a siphonophore – a large life form with many segments.
‘When I first saw it out the window, it really looked like a big squid.
“I was a very exciting diver and feel very privileged to have been at the bottom of the earth.”
To put it in context, he was almost seven kilometers underwater – if you were to move Mount Everest to the bottom of the sea, there would still be about 1.5 miles to reach the surface.
Garriott, 59, took photos, posters and poems of young Daily Mirror readers with him.
Many of their schools followed its 36,000-foot dive into a British-designed submersible pump in the Pacific Ocean.
He hopes to inspire the children to save the planet and become the next generation of explorers.
He took pictures of the deepest rocks on earth sitting on the Pacific plate and he made a short sci-fi film down there – he did the same when he was an astronaut on the International Space Station in 2008.
He also took samples to the surface that will be analyzed and may contain species not yet known to mankind.
At the bottom of the ocean, he said, ‘In the video I took, you can see these pretty little translucent black worms of four or five inches.
‘They’re there all over the floor.
“And you can also see traces of bigger things out there.”
And amazingly, he traveled the entire 12 hours without going to the toilet.
He laughs: ‘I know the kids would be interested in that!
‘There’s a personal bathroom on these appliances – on the Mir submersible pumps it’s big enough to hang a curtain for a bit of privacy.
‘But on a spacecraft it’s not possible – you’re in a space suit.
(Image: Handout)
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‘The night before your flight, the doctor comes to you and gives you an adult diaper and says wear it and plan to use it!
‘On this trip I was willing to take care of myself on my own seat, but the night before dinner I had no drink.
“In the morning I had no booze, so fortunately I did not need the booze – my first 12 hour expedition when I did not.”
(Image: Five Deeps)
According to his description, it was time to become the 14th person to officially descend.
‘We met on the Sky deck – we call it the Sky bar and there was a cooler full of beer and I left a bottle of vodka on ice earlier, which was delicious.
“It was a fantastic end to an amazing day.”