Beach Books -A local adventurer brings a Russian
explorer’s epic tales to America

The Deep: Voyages To Titanic and Beyond by Anatoly M. Sagalevich, with Paul Isley III. Botanical Press (www.botanical-Press.com). 298 pages. $64.95

(Editor’s note: Isley, a Manhattan Beach resident, botanist and adventurer, translated, co-wrote, and published the first English edition of Anatoly M. Sagalevich’s The Deep: Voyages to Titanic and Beyond. Sagalevich is perhaps the greatest explorer of the oceanic deep the world has yet known. In the course of leading Moscow’s Laboratory of Manned Submersibles, he has made than 1,000 dives and seen places that no other human being has ever seen or perhaps will ever see again – including the first expedition, in 2007, to the geographic “real” North Pole, 14,100 ft. below the polar ice. His two Mirs submersibles – there are only four deep ocean submersible vehicles currently in existence – are responsible for most of what any of us have ever seen of the those most mysterious areas of the ocean, including all the footage used for the Titanic film and documentary. (Sagalevich has made 57 dives to the Titanic alone.. Sagalevich is a much-loved character among the tight-net global community of adventurers, a boisterous, musical, endlessly curious and technologically brilliant man who is described by National Geographic’s Emory Kristof (in The Deep’s forward) as “a Russian Peter Pan, Captain Nemo, and Pete Seegar rolled into one.” “For anyone fortunate to experience The Deep,” Sagalevich writes, “this sense of the depth is subconsciously ever-present, for the moment the hatch closes, to touching the seabed, to departing from the underwater landscape, and finally to surfacing. But even after the hatch is opened and friends and colleagues are met on board the mother ship, this extraordinary feeling does not simply disappear – it lives on somewhere inside.”)

by Paul T. Isley III
As a fellow member of the Los Angeles Adventurers’ Club (LAAC), I was in the company of Dr. Anatoly Sagalevich at a meeting when he mentioned to no one in particular that he would like to see an English edition of his Russian book, The Deep.
I had published a large format, hardbound coffee table book on Tillandsia, a type of Bromeliad known as an “air plant,” and I was in the process of bringing out a new, updated edition. I self-published the first book and was planning to do so again, so I told Anatoly that I would consider publishing his book along with mine because it wouldn’t take much extra effort to piggyback it. [Editor’s note: Isley is co-owner of Rainforest Flora in Torrance, which specializes in tillandsias.]
He agreed and soon sent me the photos and the “translation” from his home in Moscow. When I started to read the text I instantly realized we had a major problem. I could barely read the translation. The entire book would have to be rewritten, a process that ended up taking two years and hundreds of hours. As the process went along I spent many, many hours in research because Anatoly is a scientist/engineer who was writing to kindred souls in the Russian deep ocean community.

One of the great benefits of taking on this project was that, over time, I became friends with some of the leading lights in the deep-sea community. Invariably, these special people availed themselves to me with answers to questions, in-depth background material, and fascinating anecdotal stories. Among them was Don Walsh, a fellow LAAC member, who went to the bottom of the Marianas Trench (35,800 feet) on January 23, 1960 with Jacques Piccard and who enjoyed a stellar career in the U.S Navy, at USC, and in private industry. Emory Kristof is also a member of LAAC and also helped immensely. Kristof planned and led many of National Geographic’s oceanic expeditions over the past 30 years. Stephen Low, who has made numerous IMAX movies, had many keen insights into the process of how the large 70 mm cameras were used in “The Deep.” James Cameron (LAAC), who directed Titanic, answered numerous queries about filming the movie in the incredibly hostile conditions. Finally, I was generously assisted by cinematographer and all around bon vivant Ralph White (LAAC), who worked with Cameron and who dove to Titanic some 37 times and was a participant on expeditions to the North and South Poles and everywhere in between.
The deep-sea world is pitch black and the pressure on the hull of the deep-sea submersibles (DMSs) is in the tons per square inch. One pinhole would cut a man in half in an instant, but even faster would be the implosion of the vehicle. There are only four DMSs in the world, one in Japan, one in France, and two in Russia. The two Russian DMSs, called the Mirs (which means peace in Russian) are the main focus of the book. Having the two together is what made the filming of deep-water sequences in “Titanic” possible. The story of how they were designed and built given the design challenges and the international political intrigue that dogged the project from the beginning is enthralling and the subject of one chapter.
Anatoly’s trip to the North Pole in July and August, 2007 occurred in the middle of this project. It was in many ways the most dangerous of his over 1,000 dangerous dives to The Deep. The two Mir crews dove through a tiny 300 ft. by 150 ft. manmade hole in the ice to reach the floor of the ocean, 14,100 ft. below. While they were below the surface the ice above them was constantly moving. And the ocean current kept moving, so they were constantly moving. And yet, after almost nine hours below the surface they had to find that small open water lead in the ice or they would perish. This exploit was an astounding achievement of science, engineering and courage by Anatoly and his crew. It was an event that resonated around the world, something that may never be repeated again.
The chapter on Titanic was in many ways the most interesting because of the grip that tragedy has had on hearts and imaginations for almost a century now. James Cameron’s epic film did wonders to bring that frigid night of April 11 and 12 to life for millions of viewers. To actually dive to the wreck site at 12,400 ft. and see the physical remains of the ship and the many artifacts that litter the ocean floor had to be a tremendously emotional experience for all who were fortunate enough to do so.
In researching the book I met quite a few people who had dived to Titanic or the Bismarck or to the deep-sea vents where the tectonic plates abut. Every single person, without exception, who had been to one of the wrecks and to the vents said that seeing the vents was a greater and more dumbfounding experience. Even hardcore scientists who had seen and done it all were mesmerized for hours at a time. Imagine tiny chemosynthetic oases of teeming life thousands of feet below the surface in utterly pitch-black conditions. Get too close to the vents and you turn into boiled shrimp. Get more than three feet away and you freeze to death.
It’s all beyond words and yet the photos and descriptions Anatoly presents are as close as one can get to actually being there.
I had many ideas on how to make the book more attractive to an English speaking audience. One of those was to have an introductory, knock-out chapter opener photo that spanned the width of the left page and part of the right as well. In the chapter on Titanic, there is the famous photo of Titanic’s stern as it’s leaving Southhampton with people at the railing, waving to those on shore. I turned to G.K Chesterton for the quote below the photo.

Lady, the stars are falling pale and small,
Lady, we will not live if life be all,
For more than gold was in a ring,
And love was not a little thing.
G.K. Chesterton

Another idea was to put high quality maps of the Pacific Ocean floor for the front inside cover and the Atlantic Ocean for the back. National Geographic sent us the maps and we used these to great effect. The book designer did a great job of plotting the names of the dives along with the longitude and latitudes so readers can see where Sagalevich dives occurred.
It’s such a great story and I’m thrilled that people will now be able to learn about what it’s like to be at the bottom of the oceans exploring and studying things that heretofore people could only dream about.
Oh, one small, final detail. My quid pro quo for doing this project (I was not paid) is to take my someday-to-be scientist, 16 year old daughter Kacey on a trip down to Titanic in Mir-1 with Anatoly. While no one can predict the future, the promise has been made. B