CAROLINE GRAHAM Watches As Sub Travels Seven Miles Below The Pacific

The shiny white diving sub bounces and bobs in the Pacific Ocean as the water stretches out vast and blue as far as my eyes can see. 

For a few minutes the vessel rocks in the waves and then it is gone, descending seven miles through the ocean depths to the bottom of the sea.

Perched on the edge of an inflatable dinghy, I look down in awe as the £28 million capsule drops silently through the crystal-clear waters before, finally, CrystalHolidays it disappears into darkness.

Four hours later, back aboard the support ship, the DSSV Pressure Drop, the faint voice of the sub's pilot, explorer Victor Vescovo, crackles over the radio to announce that he and passenger Kelly Walsh have reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench - the base of what is ominously called the ‘hadal zone' after Hades, Greek god of the underworld. 

Dubbed ‘the final frontier of exploration', it is so deep that if you placed Mount Everest at its base, the mountain's peak would still be 7,000ft below sea level.









Vescovo's voice has taken seven seconds to travel through the seven-mile vertical wall of water between sub and ship.

The titanium sphere he and Kelly are sitting in is being subjected to 100,000 tons of pressure, the equivalent of the weight of 291 fully loaded jumbo jets or 7,900 double-decker buses.

‘Welcome to the future,' grins expedition leader Rob McCallum. ‘You've just witnessed history being made. 

'This is the first and only submersible that can go to full ocean depth and back repeatedly and safely. In terms of technology, it's the equivalent of making a daily flight into orbit.

‘Man knows so little about life at these depths so we're essentially a pathfinder off to explore the final and most forbidding frontier on Earth.'






Mail on Sunday Correspondent Caroline Graham and Pilot Victor Vescovo in the cockpit of the Triton 36000/2 - DSV Limiting Factor which dives to Mariana Trench







Pictured Caroline on Zodiac looking back at the ship, Pressure Drop. The 225ft Deep Submergence Support Vessel (DSSV) Pressure Drop was built in 1985 by the US Navy to hunt Russian submarines and is now owned by Vescovo, a pony-tailed 6ft 1in Texan who made his fortune in private equity before using his wealth to fund his love of exploration







I left my home in Los Angeles in the early hours of Sunday, June 14, flying via San Francisco to Honolulu and then on to Guam (crossing the international date line) to arrive the following night to meet the ship - a distance of very nearly 6,100 miles

















Detroit businessman Jim Wigginton, 71, wanted go ��seven miles down' to raise awareness for a thyroid cancer foundation he established in memory of his late wife. Vescovo has put the entire operation up for sale for £40 million. He hopes the ship will continue as a privately run entity. Pictured, Mr Wigginton collecting rocks at the bottom of the Mariana Trench