EXPEDITION DEEP OCEAN

A blow-by-blow chronicle of attempts to reach the maximum depths of all five oceans.

Victor Vescovo, a wealthy explorer from Texas, had already made it to the summits of the highest peaks on each of the seven continents and skied both poles when he decided to seek the bottoms of the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Southern oceans. While three individuals had already traveled by submersible to the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean, no one had tackled all five oceans, let alone all in the same year. Young narrates the quest in granular detail, which works in some places and not in others, much like the submersible that Vescovo commissioned to be designed and built for his adventure. The construction particulars of the submersible, christened the Limiting Factor, are fun to explore with Young, as are the “share of gremlins” discovered during the sea trials. However, minutiae such as the “high-end coffee maker that produced espresso and lattes” sometimes bog down the narrative, which is further complicated by occasional awkward sentences—e.g., “Vescovo and Ramsay had extensively review [sic] of metals and eventually, mutually concluded that titanium would be the best bet.” On the whole, however, the story is readable and entertaining, whether the author is discussing drama on the high seas, the objectives of the Five Deeps Expedition, as the enterprise came to be known, or Vescovo’s love for the great depths: “The solitude reminds me of when I fly my helicopter visually and I’m not talking to air traffic control…I’m up there looking around not being bothered by anyone….Just me and my machine, going somewhere, exploring.” Vescovo gradually emerges as a complicated character, one moment expressing his strong ego and the next, the humility and respect that must be brought to extreme adventuring—and there’s plenty of adventure to be found here.

A vigorous tale of human ambition, technical challenge, and nervy attitude.