Andrea Zelinski
A fisherman named Gino Perez had long heard the stories of the Titania.
The location of the vessel, a World War I-era supply ship, was one of lore, namely because it had been sunk 110 years ago near the coast of Alejandro Selkirk Island in Chile's Juan Fernandez Archipelago, not far from where Perez fished.
Fishermen occasionally found metal fragments in their lobster traps that they believed belonged to the lost vessel, but no one had ever located the ship.
Until this month.
Seabourn Cruises solved the mystery of where the Titania sat on the ocean floor by exploring the area using the submarine on the Seabourn Pursuit, one of its two expedition ships.
Several expedition lines -- Viking, Scenic and Seabourn are just three examples -- offer submarine experiences, and the subs dive deep under the water's surface and offer guests a chance to discover something, whether a glimpse of sea life, items lost to the ocean or creatures typically hidden from view.
Seabourn had been working to find the Titania. Its expedition team teamed with Perez and had him join the dive and help lead the team to the shipwreck site. As it turns out, the ship was resting about four-and-a-quarter nautical miles off the northwest coast of Alejandro Selkirk Island.
"I imagined this ship so many times, and now I can see where she is, how she looks and how she is resting at the bottom," Perez said.
Robin West, vice president and general manager of expeditions at Seabourn, said the discovery was "nothing short of heroic."
"Experiences like these are a testament to the spirit of expedition," he said.
The giant phantom jellyfish caught on camera during a Viking dive on the Viking Octantis' submarine. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Viking/Antony Gilbert
The excitement of a sub dive
Diving in a submarine can unlock new worlds for cruise passengers, and I can speak from experience. I was in the Great Lakes with Viking in 2022, shortly after the line debuted its first expedition ship, the Viking Octantis. During my dive into Lake Huron, we found what looked like mussels that clung to rocks carved by continental ice sheets that once were a mile or two tall.
I was amazed and felt like I was in another world once under the ocean's surface. Of course, I also wished to see a shipwreck, or some relic of an era gone by.
Seabourn isn't the only one to make a discovery with a sub. Viking guests on three occasions have spotted a rare, giant phantom jellyfish in the depths of Antarctic Peninsula during its first season there in 2022. At the time, only 126 sightings had ever been recorded of the creature with a mysterious name.
"It is extraordinary that we know so little about such large marine creatures as the giant phantom jellyfish; however, now we have the means to make regular observations at greater depths than previously possible, which provides an exciting opportunity for discovery," said Daniel Moore, the lead author of Viking's scientific paper on the subject, which was published in Polar Research in 2023.