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More than eighty years later, passengers aboard the two ships would watch the live video feed on giant screens, as a tiny three-man titanium submersible, the Nautile, would descend to the Titanic to raise a section of the ship’s hull that was lying in the debris around the wreckage, and explore the bow section of the ship for the first time. I was invited to be one of the three men to make the two and a half mile dive to the Titanic. At the time, I was in the midst of an international book tour, promoting Encounter with Tiber, so it probably took me at least half a second to accept that invitation to include the cruise itinerary in my tour and explore the Titanic!

Since Encounter with Tiber was released to rave reviews, I had been doing a whirlwind tour of the Planet Hollywood restaurants and entertainment complexes across the country. Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as many other works of science fiction, had started the buzz with his kind comments, lamenting facetiously that although I had written two nonfiction books, I was now moving into his territory. “It doesn’t seem fair,” Clarke wrote in the foreword to the book, “There was a time when we science fiction writers had Space all to ourselves and could do just what we liked with it. Not anymore…. People like Buzz have been there, and can tell us exactly where we went wrong. And now, to add insult to injury, they’re writing science fiction themselves. Even worse—it’s darn good science fiction.” I preferred the term “techno-thriller,” but I certainly appreciated such a glowing endorsement from one of the world’s best SF writers. We had begun negotiations with Paramount Pictures to do a miniseries based on the book. The script was snatched up by ABC Television. But Disney, ABC’s parent company, had already begun production on their Mission to Mars feature film and determined that the projects would be competing, so ultimately the Tiber series was tabled.

The RMS Titanic organizers planned several special events for Lois and me to meet our fellow passengers aboard the the Royal Majesty and Island Breeze, and to promote my new book. Then we rendezvoused with the utility ship carrying the Nautile. Looking at the tiny yellow submarine, it was almost impossible not to think of the Beatles song by that title. But the Beatles could not have imagined climbing into such a minisub and slowly descending through the darkness nearly three miles below the surface. The submersible was spherical, with small portholes of glass on the left and right sides, built to withstand the enormous pressure of the water at such a depth. It was one of only a few submersibles in the world able to make such a dive.

The inside of the sub was extremely tight, even smaller than the command module Columbia. A claustrophobic person would not have lasted three minutes once the hatch was closed. To maneuver the sub, the pilot had to sit and work the controls, while his copilot and I had to lie flat on our stomachs on boards just off the floor to remain dry, due to the wet floor area. If nature called, we had a pail on the floor for collection purposes. It was not a luxurious ride.

My fellow divers were French, so they could speak a bit of broken English to me, but most of the communications with the surface were in French. Although I could probably order a decent meal in Paris, that was the extent of my French, so in addition to the odd feeling of dropping toward the ocean floor through darkness, I felt a bit at a loss to understand the instructions and conversations of my colleagues.

Meanwhile, a British film crew was making a documentary, Explorers of the Titanic, that they planned to air on the Discovery Channel. They had asked me to provide the audio commentary as the submersible made its way down to the Titanic. Visibility was extremely poor, perhaps less than 150 feet at best, so my live transmissions were rather limited until we got down to within 150 feet of the vessel. Even then, because of the depth, it was impossible