Expedition Deep Ocean: The First Descent to the Bottom of All Five of the World's Oceans

by Josh Young, Eric G. Dove (Read by)

Overview

The riveting story of the history-making mission to reach the bottom of all five of the world’s oceans – the ultimate frontier of our planet.

Humankind has explored every continent on earth, climbed its tallest mountains, and gone into space. But the largest areas of our planet remain a mystery: the deep oceans. At over 36,000 feet deep, these areas closest to earth’s core have remained nearly impossible to reach—until now.

Technological innovations, engineering breakthroughs, and the derring-do of a unique team of engineers and scientists, led by explorer Victor Vescovo, brought together an audacious global quest to dive to the deepest points of all five oceans for the first time in history.

Expedition Deep Ocean reveals the marvelous and other-worldly life found in the ocean’s five deepest trenches, including several new species that have posed as of yet unanswered questions about survival and migration between oceans. Then there are the newly discovered sea mounts that cause tsunamis when they are broken by shifting tectonic plates and jammed back into the earth’s crust, something that can now be studied to predict future disasters.

Filled with high drama, adventure and the thrill of discovery, Expedition Deep Ocean celebrates courage and ingenuity and reveals the majesty and importance of the deep ocean.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665023214
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	03/02/2021
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Josh Young is author or cowriter of more than twenty books, including five New York Times bestsellers. His books include Here’s the Deal: Don’t Touch Me with Howie Mandel, Erasing Death with Dr. Sam Parnia, Epic Survival with Matt Graham, You’re Only as Good as Your Next One with Mike Medavoy, and Bob Newhart’s I Shouldn’t Even Be Doing This.

Eric G. Dove is a multiple Earphones Award–winning narrator, and his credits include more than one hundred audiobooks. He is also an accomplished musician and a budding author, who published Ghosts of Royston in 2013. He is a graduate of Ohio State University.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Space to Sea xi

1 The Exploration Gene 1

2 The Search for a Sub 14

3 The Sub Builders 25

4 Limiting Factors 38

5 Classing Up the Ship 52

6 Team Leaders 66

7 Sweating Out the Summer 79

8 Sea Trials 94

9 Circling the Titanic 112

10 Weathering Storms Big and Small 125

11 Off the Deep End 139

12 Media Matters 156

13 Here Be Dragons 169

14 The Java Script 190

15 Dark, Deep, and Dangerous 210

16 Breaking News 232

17 Back to the Titanic 246

18 Rolling through the Deeps 260

Epilogue: Breaking the Waves 277

Postscript 301

Acknowledgments 307

Additional Resources 310

Index 311

Editorial Reviews

"Captures the spirit, activities and personalities of the team that made Victor Vescovo’s historical The Five Deeps Expedition such a great success. The expedition’s pioneering technologies and scientific discoveries in the oceans’ deepest places were without parallel. Thanks to Victor’s commitment of his time and treasure, the global ocean science community now has been enriched, with the pathway laid to unlock the secrets hidden away in the depths."

Don Walsh

What do you do next, if you’re a visionary explorer who has summited the highest peak on every continent and skied across both the North and South Poles? For Victor Vescovo, the answer was to become the first person to dive to the deepest point in all five ocean basins. The first two problems he encountered were daunting: Nobody knew quite where they were, and no existing underwater vehicle existed could dive anywhere near that deep. Expedition Deep Ocean takes you inside his quest to overcome these (and many other) hurdles and complete the Five Deeps challenge, transforming deep-ocean exploration in the process. Josh Young’s engaging account of the colorful characters and grand adventure of the Five Deeps Expedition will keep you turning the pages.

Dr. Kathy Sullivan

Young chronicles the fascinating story of recent dives to the deepest places in all of the world’s oceans. Young describes how Vescovo and a team of engineers and scientists at Florida-based Triton Submarines took on the technical challenges that led to a revolutionary sub design.

Explorer’s Journal - Milbry Polk

"What you don't realize when you see a headline about the world's first successful attempt to reach the bottom of all 5 oceans is how much work and stress went into it. Citizen explorer Victor Vescovo's remarkable quest to complete earth's last great adventure could easily have gone wrong—and it nearly did, many times. But he stuck with it, and history was made. Vescovo has done something audacious and important here — and thanks to this riveting account of every incredible moment, his story can be told for generations."

Josh Dean

"In the Pantheon of great explorers—Amundsen, Heyerdahl, Hillary, Armstrong, among others—a new name must be added. That name is Victor Vescovo, an explorer of the highest order. We now have an engrossingly written account of Vescovo's remarkable global quest to conquer those areas closest to the earth's core. Exploration Deep Ocean draws the reader into all the myriad aspects of such an adventure, from designing and building a submersible capable of diving over 36,000 feet, to negotiating global politics, to the actual dives and the mysteries discovered as Vescovo went to spots heretofore deemed impossible to reach. Danger and risk have been no strangers in my life, but reading Victor's story sent chills down my spine. Expedition Deep Ocean now has a permanent spot on my book shelf."

Charles C. Krulak

"Young combines science, technology, personality clashes, and camraderie in this page-turning tale. The harsh and unforgiving deep ocean is not less of a mystery thanks to Vescovo and his team. A cutting-edge yet classic adventure and an introduction to the wonders of deep-ocean life."

Bookilst - James Pekoll

Exciting and suspenseful. Make no bones about it—this is an old-fashioned adventure story. Wonderfully readable, Young weaves in scientific, geographic and engineering details effortlessly. There’s humor and drama and headaches galore. Fundamentally, Expedition Deep Ocean is a book about tackling — and solving — really difficult problems. You need talented people with different skills, a level-headed leader and patience for initial failures. It will take a lot of money, and you may never get much credit for your accomplishment. More than just a fun read, these are lessons that we all could use right now. Can we send a copy to Washington?

The Washington Post - Lucinda Robb

"Expedition Deep Ocean takes readers behind the scenes, beneath the waves, and around the globe on one of the most audacious adventures of our time. It’s a white-knuckle journey with larger-than-life characters, cutting-edge technology, and a singular purpose: to go deeper. Fittingly, Josh Young tells the inspiring story of Victor Vescovo and his team in great depth."

Susan Casey

This audiobook recounts the true story of the Five Deeps Expedition of 2019-2020, a quest launched by equity investor and well-known explorer Victor Vescovo. The goal was for a manned submersible to reach the deepest points of the Earth’s five oceans, with side trips to the TITANIC, the Horizon Deep, the Challenger Deep, the Sirena Deep, and the Diamantina Fracture Zone. The mission was a spectacular success, though there were many troubles along the way, both technological and interpersonal. Narrator Eric Dove sounds like a businessman himself—highly articulate and well paced. Various nationalities were involved, and Dove uses accents effectively and smoothly. Most of the narrative deals with the business side of the enterprise, though the scientific discoveries are also described. This is true-life adventure. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2021 - AudioFile