submersible

In Search of Sugar.

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I was out of sugar, an immediate concern, but not so immediate that I didn’t make one cup of coffee to wake up enough to go get it.

Along the way, I felt hunger, so I stopped by a Subway to get a breakfast sandwich. The line was long, someone had called in an idiotic order – and Trinis love idiotic orders. Everyone wants different things, and the selection of vegetables varied from sandwich to sandwich, across 6 sandwiches. The lady looked up, saw me, and immediately knew my order and got it started.

I suppose I am a bit predictable.

Eating the sandwich, with the coffee kicking in, I made a mental list of other things I should get while at the store while watching a young mother try to be sensible to what looked to be a 4 year old girl, with mixed success.

“Why can’t I have coke?”

“Because you’re not an adult, that’s why.”

Do as I say, not as I do. I smiled, cleared what little mess I had made at the table, and left – but there was a coffee shop nearby, so I decided I needed more coffee. It was on the way, after all. I strode in and happily was at the front of the line, and the barista served the coffee immediately, with her signature, “My darling Steve”. I asked if she was working alone.

“They abandoned me!”

“Well, the customers haven’t and we appreciate you.”

Settling in to finish the coffee, I caught bits of conversation. Once was related to some work drama, where two ladies were complaining about a third lady who was not there – something to do with ordering. Two elderly and one young woman were pointing and chattering at something on a laptop. Inane background noise, while every now and then the two possible college women were projecting their voices at each other from 2 feet apart at odd times, discussing something about a class.

Mundane.

Heading to the store, I found what I needed – the sugar – checked out, and came home. Writing this – the whole reason I’m writing this – is that no one was talking about the lost submersible, the Titan. It was not a part of their lives, it did not matter to them.

As one person put it yesterday, “If some people spent that kind of money to go looking for the Titanic in a ship named Titan… maybe they found it and people will visit their graves too.”

The world is harsh, people are harsh, and nature cannot be fooled.

And I forgot the sugar.

The Dark: The Titan submersible.

~ taran.a.rampersad@gmail.com ~ 2 Comments

It’s very dark down there. So dark, in fact, that the image at left might not do it justice. Lights don’t penetrate very far at those depths. At the depth of the wreckage of RMS Titanic, the pressure is around 4,000 pounds per square inch – the bite force of a saltwater crocodile.

Because of that, the Titan is spartan. Videos show a bluetooth controller and touchscreens in tight quarters. People spend $250,000 US to do this.

The New York Times has great coverage of the entire situation with the rescue efforts of the submersible Titan.

People also spend a lot of money to go to space. Virgin Galactic is willing to take $450,000 US of your spare change that you may find in your couch, as an example. It does have better lighting on that trip, I hear.

I’m an explorer myself, and I enjoy seeing new and interesting places and things. I have no interest in seeing the RMS Titanic’s wreckage which is essentially a graveyard. No one does expeditions like this in Pearl Harbor because those dead are honored and respected. The RMS Titanic’s dead apparently are not as much. Is it exploration or is it tourism? I think it’s tourism. Thrill seeking.

We can’t truly fathom how out of depth we are that deep in the ocean.

Why it sank is summarized as, “High speeds, a fatal wrong turn, cut costs, weather conditions, a dismissed key iceberg warning and lack of binoculars and lifeboats all contributed.” In essence, mistakes were made and the oceans do not abide mistakes very well.

Of course, we all hope that they are found alive and well, and someone will give them steaming cups of hot cocoa for their trouble. The news is alive with it because the news loves a good tragedy in the making, particularly one where it’s very dark and air is running out.

James Cameron might even do a movie about it, regardless of how it turns out, though I expect there won’t be much in the way of romance – and romance is what really sold the movie about the Titanic because we all know how it ends.

I suppose what bothers me most is that rescuing 5 survivors off that submersible that voluntarily went down there is such a news cycle item when there are people who are unable to get assistance in situations that they were involuntarily placed in. There are plenty of people who could use assistance from all these governments to simply keep their heads above water.

When the Challenger exploded, as could well happen with some of that space tourism stuff, these were scientists that were going to actually explore. To find out new things, to broaden humanity’s horizons, and I simply don’t feel the same about some people who pay exorbitant amounts to have a seat without giving anything of value back to humanity other than saying that they had a window view of a very sunken ship.

I bear them no ill will, in fact I wish them a safe rescue. It just seems priorities are askew. People paying to throw themselves off cliffs are costing millions in rescue efforts. People are spending hours watching nothing happen, because these things are not easy to do, and we have gained…

Well, when it’s all said and done, we’ll see what we’ve gained from this other than some advertising for the media, and maybe cost to taxpayers of the involved nations. That seems very weird to me.

Very weird.

It is, after all, very dark down there. We can send unmanned craft to go look at things that deep.