A dream comes true 1,553 meters below sea level

By SHO IMAI/ The Asahi Shimbun GLOBE

On the other side of the 4.7-inch diameter, 5.5-inch thick round acrylic window, the bottom of the sea has an ashen hue. A thick layer of sand and dead plankton called marine snow cover the ocean floor.

Inside the Shinkai 6500, pilot Kazuhiro Chiba grips the microphone of an underwater telephone and sends an audio transmission back to the base ship above the waves. Co-pilot Masanobu Yanagitani records the depth and time.

"We have descended to the ocean floor at a depth of one-five-five-three meters,” Chiba says. “We will now commence observation of benthic organisms in the vicinity."

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The Shinkai 6500, a manned research submersible (bathyscape) owned by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), was completed in 1989 and is one of the world's few vehicles that can dive to 6,500 meters below sea level.

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