US adventurer first to visit every ocean’s deepest point

Victor Vescovo’s feat took 10 months to complete in a specially-designed submarine

Team reviewing dive sites in the Atlantic Ocean. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

LF emerging from dive at Atlantic Ocean. Courtesy: The 5 Deeps

Lander getting ready to launch at the Atlantic Ocean dive site. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

Team entering Limiting Factor for the Atlantic Ocean dive. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

The DSSV Pressure Drop. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

Victor Vescovo indicates to the Expedition Team the proposed routing for the South Sandwich. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

Victor Vescovo discusses plans for the Southern Ocean dive. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

Deployment of science lander "Flere" at the Southern Ocean dive site. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

Victor Vescovo on board the DSSV Pressure Drop

The team works in the Southern Ocean. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

A boat sails past an Iceberg in the Southern Ocean. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

DSSV Pressure Drop sails the Southern Ocean. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

Vescovo's craft is lowered into the sea. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

The team discovered a new species of jellyfish in the Indian Ocean. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

The team discovered a new species of jellyfish in the Indian Ocean. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

The two crafts float on the Indian Ocean. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

A night dive on the Pacific Ocean. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

A dive on the Pacific Ocean. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

Limiting factor is lifted by DSSV's equipment. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

Victor Vescovo inside Limiting Factor. Courtesy: The Five Deeps Expedition

An American deep-sea diver has become the first person to reach the deepest points of the world’s five oceans.

Victor Vescovo, 53, embarked on the Five Deeps Expedition in December 2018, finishing his last dive to the Arctic Ocean’s Molloy Hole on August 24. It was the first time a person had ever been to this location, at a depth of 5,550m.

The project was self-funded by the private equity investor from Dallas, Texas, and covered 74,000 kilometres travelling to each dive site.

Mr Vescovo had a submarine specially designed by Triton Submarines for the task of taking him to the depths of the Pacific, Southern, Atlantic, Indian and Arctic oceans. Although the 12,500 kilogram Limiting Factor was built for two people, Mr Vescovo insisted on taking the challenge on alone.

A US Navy vessel was repurposed to launch Limiting Factor. The DSSV Pressure Drop contains both a wet and dry lab for science activities and can host 49 personnel.

The National

This isn’t the adventurer’s first challenge - he has also scaled the highest mountain on each of the world’s seven continents and skied to both the North and South poles.

"I come from a philosophy that says we're put here not just to survive, or even just to be comfortable - but to contribute in some way,” he told the BBC after completing the fifth and final dive.

“And the path I chose was to have some adventure whilst also doing something that could move us forward as a species."

Mr Vescovo’s penultimate dive was the deepest at 10,928 - the deepest of any dive by any human in history. It took place at Challenger Deep within the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench. The trench was last visited by filmmaker and explorer James Cameron in 2012, who reached a depth of 10,908 meters on a dive in his own submersible craft, the Deepsea Challenger.

The Five Deeps Expedition also visited the wreck of the titanic for the first time in 14 years, capturing video of erosion.

Scientific discoveries have also been made as part of the process, which not only launched Limiting Factor into the depths, but also measurement and camera equipment.

The team, led by University of Newcastle scientish Dr Alan Jamieson, says it has discovered over 40 new species and taken hundreds of samples for analysis in the lab. His team also made more depressing discoveries; at Challenger Deep they found a plastic bag and sweet wrappers  on the ocean floor.

"It was very disappointing to see obvious human contamination of the deepest point in the ocean," Vescovo told Reuters at the time.

"It’s not a big garbage collection pool, even though it’s treated as such.”