It appears that sending his co-founder to his death in the Titan submarine last year wasn’t enough. Guillermo Söhnlein, who co-founded OceanGate with Stockton Rush in 2009 but left in 2013, is now organizing a trip to one of the world’s deepest underwater sinkholes.


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Where most people would take their friend’s death as a sign to recalibrate and re-evaluate, as well as maybe pivot to a different line of work, perhaps one that didn’t kill your friend and several other passengers, Söhnlein is doubling down.


Exactly a year after the Titan submarine disaster that killed five people including a teenager, Söhnlein revealed his intentions to travel to Dean’s Blue Hole, a sinkhole located in the Bahamas at 663-feet below sea level, with his company Blue Marble Exploration, which he started after leaving OceanGate.



A page on Blue Marble Exploration’s website explains that Dean’s Blue Hole is “virtually unexplored” and that the company’s crewed submersible will be equipped with LED lights and underwater drone technology. Dean’s Blue Hole is described as an “enigma” for geologists, as its depth means very little is known about it.


The crew will consist of Söhnlein, Scott Parazynski, a physician and former NASA astronaut, and Kenny Broad, a licensed U.S. Coast Guard captain and anthropologist. While Blue Marble Exploration’s website invites users to “join our expedition,” it’s not clear how many people will be able to do so, or how much it will cost (spots on the Titan cost $250,000 apiece).


It seems like billionaires are determined to race each other to the bottom of the ocean, as just last month, Ohio billionaire Larry Connor revealed that he will be heading down to the Titanic wreck site in a $20 million submersible in order to prove the industry is safe following the Titan disaster.


What happened to having a healthy fear of the ocean and all of its secrets? I think we should go back to that and leave the ocean alone — it’s made its feelings toward explorers pretty clear.