Titanic Memorial Story

Image Credit: “Commemorative plaques placed on the Titanic, former bridge place, right next to the telemotor.” ~ The Story of Titanic (Facebook page HERE)

After 111 years the Titanic is still making news. The search for the OceanGate Titan submersible and its five occupants captivated the nation. On its way to the resting place of the Titanic, the submersible ironically became a victim of calamitous circumstances itself, much like the great ocean liner which it sought. Now the remains of the two vessels rest just 1600 feet apart. A tragic commentary. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those that perished in this latest chapter of the Titanic story.

Just prior to the unhappy news of the discovery of the debris field that marked the location of the OceanGate submersible, I received an e-mail from Noel Wells, who was formerly the Mel Fisher Museum Director of Conservation for the 1715 Fleet in Sebastian, Florida. Mel Fisher had been involved in salvaging the wreck sites of the 1715 Fleet for many years prior to his discovery of the Atocha in 1985. He related to me a most fascinating story regarding a 1715 Fleet connection to the Titanic. Sound Fantastic? Improbable? Well, here is the story in his own words:

“In 2001 I was the Director of Conservation for the 1715 Fleet in Sebastian for the Mel Fisher Museum. I was tasked with creating some type of tribute to Mel Fisher. What made this tribute all the more special was that it was to be placed on the deck of the Titanic. At that time there were only two other memorials on the deck of the Titanic. One was a plaque placed there by Bob Ballard who located the Titanic in 1985 and the other was a bunch of plastic flowers. Currently, there are others.

Included in my memorial creation were to be Mel’s ashes and a commemorative coin depicting Mel’s likeness. Considering the pressure of 6,000 PSI (Pounds per square inch) and the depth of about 13,000 feet, I didn’t have much latitude regarding components so I decided to use a glass globe (sort of like a goldfish bowl) and fill it with crystal clear two-part epoxy. I was confident that it would withstand the pressure (with my fingers crossed).

I poured some of Mel’s ashes into the bowl and suspended the coin halfway using a clear fishing line. My hope was that the fishing line would be invisible when the epoxy was poured in, and it was.

The tricky part was slowly mixing the two parts of epoxy and pouring slowly enough (so that there were no bubbles) without disturbing the ashes, yet fast enough to fill the globe before the epoxy began to set. All was progressing well when I decided to make an unauthorized addition to the whole thing. Before the epoxy was poured I added a few of my own hairs to the bowl confident that the hairs would not be a big distraction at 13,000 feet under the North Atlantic. Miraculously, the whole experiment worked perfectly. The coin appears to be floating untethered and the ashes are at the bottom, undisturbed. My hairs are forever suspended in the globe and as you can see in the photograph below, they aren’t at all distracting.”

(NOTE: As a final observation It would appear with a high degree of probability that Noel Wells is the only living human being whose DNA is currently on the Titanic!)