New records are always being broken, but, the first person to make it into a deep abyss and record his findings was William Beebe. William Beebe never set out to become an ocean explorer and did not make his record breaking trip until he was 57 years old. Up until then he was content as the Director of Tropical Research for the New York Zoological Society. It was perhaps that he was egged on by his good pal, Teddy Roosevelt.

On August 15, 1934 off the coast of Bermuda he descended to 3,028 feet. He went down in a bathysphere connected to a steel cable. There was also a rubber hose that was his means of getting oxygen and communicating (there was a telephone wire attached). This bathysphere was designed by Otis Barton.

What Beebe enjoyed most of this excursion and others he took leading up to it was the chance to view creatures that were so unfamiliar to anything anyone had seen at the time. He was an avid life traveler and had traveled to Mexico, Asia, South America and e Galapagos Islands, but, said the trips to the deep sea were one of a kind. He later wrote, “First of all there was the complete and utter loneliness and isolation … . It was loneliness more akin to a first venture upon the moon or Venus.”

Image (c) noaa.gov