Expert to unfurl the majestic tale of the Titanic

On 22/10/2009
In Famous Wrecks
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By Helen Jardine - BDA Sun

More than two decades ago he was collecting jewellery from the deck of the RMS Titanic, two and a half miles beneath the ocean's surface.

Last week he was discussing climate change and space travel with Buzz Aldrin - the second man ever to walk on the moon.

This week ocean explorer, doctor and author Joe MacInnis is in Bermuda to give a talk on the exploration and salvage of one of the world's most famous shipwrecks.

"Titanic is one of those wonderful, extraordinary, majestic stories that everybody can project themselves into," Dr. MacInnis said. "People wonder where they could be on that ship and ask themselves, 'what would I have done on that night?'"

Dr. MacInnis went on his first dive of the Titanic in 1987, when he says he had an "extraordinary experience".

He explained: "I was with the French team and we were at the bottom of the ocean looking into the sediment and the pilot stopped the submarine and said, 'What's that?'

"It was a small bronze statue of a woman with an uplifted arm, about three feet long. And we recognized it right away because it was such an iconic image - it was the statue that stood at the bottom of the grand staircase.