Where We Have Come From...
Where We Are Going...

Australian adventurer Mike McDowell founded Deep Ocean Expeditions (DOE) in 1998. For most of his professional career he has been involved with development, management and operation of innovative tourist expeditions reaching to the far corners of the world.

In 1991 he was a founder of the well-known Quark Expeditions expedition adventure company. Using Russian nuclear icebreakers, McDowell developed the first tourist expeditions to the North Pole. Today, Quark uses several Russian icebreakers for expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctic. In addition to the far ends of the earth expeditions McDowell has for many years organized significant natural history and scuba diving expeditions in remote regions of Papua New Guinea, Micronesia and Indonesia. McDowell also founded Adventure Network International that soon became the primary private aviation logistic support company and tour operator on the Antarctic continent. McDowell’s adventures don’t stop there; he is also one of the founding directors of Space Adventures, a company successfully offering space travel as the next adventure.

In the late 1990's he began to develop a new concept for expedition cruising: to use deep diving submersibles to take people exploring in the oceans' depths. He named this concept, "Adventure Diving". Thus Deep Ocean Expeditions was born in 1998 and today it is still the only company offering adventure submersible diving programs.

Deep Ocean Expeditions both owns and charters a variety of manned deep diving submersibles. The company's diving expeditions range from unique seafloor natural history sites to places defined by man's history. DOE clients have made dives to depths as shallow as 300 feet and as deep as 17,000 feet (about half the greatest depth in the world ocean).

The founding principles of Deep Ocean Expeditions are simple: offer unique expedition experiences for the adventurer; educate lay people about the world’s deep oceans, help support scientific research and to offer remote location support logistics. In addition, the company is deeply concerned with marine conservation observing the best and highest standards for its operations. Nothing is disturbed, touched or removed. The only things taken away are photographs and memories.

Every expedition has a staff of experts and lecturers to help participants learn about the site to be visited, the seas around them and the technique of operating the submersibles. In addition, many of the programs combine educational shore tours to sites that relate to the offshore diving operations. Each expedition carries with it a small but complete research library for those who wish to learn more about the ‘world around them’.

To support scientific investigation at its operating sites, DOE invites marine scientists to participate in its expeditions wherever possible. In this way, the company can help contribute to our knowledge of the world ocean.

In addition to doing their research work, these experts also offer the expedition participants a rich resource for teaching and lecturing about the places being visited. And there are many opportunities for the participants to observe the research work as it is being done; in some cases there even may be some chance for participation in the work. Many of expeditions also have scientists, filmmakers and adventurers all working alongside to record the action as it happens.

Since it's founding in 1998, Deep Ocean Expeditions has undertaken multiple diving expeditions. The first was during that year to the wreck of the great ship RMS Titanic at a depth of 12,000 feet. In following years, many additional expeditions have been made to the site.

In 1999, the first natural history site was visited. This was the Rainbow hydrothermal vents, 8,000-feet deep on the Atlantic seafloor near the Azores Islands, where expedition participants were literally diving to the edge of creation. Volcanic activity creates new earth's crust while strange communities of marine life hover around the edges of the vents. These community life forms existing by chemosynthesis were not known until 25 years ago.

In 2000 multiple dives were made on the RMS Titanic. This included the making of the Hollywood 3D production Ghosts of the Abyss directed by Hollywoods' James Cameron.

Then during the summer of 2001, DOE sent an expedition to the wreck of the WWII German battleship Bismarck. No humans had ever visited the wreck since its sinking in action 60 years before. Diving to 16,000 feet in two Russian MIR submersibles (the same that were used on Titanic and the Rainbow Vents) the scientists, historians and participants were able to view and capture on latest technology camera systems what remained of what was once the world’s most powerful battleship.

In 2002 science and filming dives were made on multiple sites in the Mid Atlantic Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean. During these dives numerous new species were discovered and recorded. An expedition was also mounted to film a documentary for Discovery Channel on the wreck of the Bismarck.

In 2003 the MIR submersibles and Deep Rover submersibles made several expeditions in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. These included dives on RMS Titanic, the Mid Atlantic Ridge and the Pacific hydrothermal vents. Several filming projects were undertaken during the season including with the BBC, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) and a feature production for Disney Productions. The Deep Rover submersibles were also used to film the record-breaking 170-metre freedive by Pipin Ferreras in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. In the intervening years DOE has been busy with yet more filming and science programmes including a live broadcast in 2005 from the ocean floor at the site of the Titanic wreck.

In addition to the deep diving MIR operations, DOE has also run expeditions out of Toulon and Marseille, France using the Remora and Deep Rover manned submersibles. Diving was undertaken on ancient shipwrecks from as early as 300 BC. The first Mediterranean expedition was in 2000 and the second a year later.

Deep Ocean Expeditions also owns the Dual Deep Worker submersible. Launched in 2003, the DDW is capable of diving to 2,000 feet with a pilot and one passenger.

The company is actively planning an array of exciting expeditions into the future and beyond.

These expeditions will be based on past experiences with several seafloor sites and a variety of manned submersibles. But underlying this expansion of the business is consistent attention to the founding principles: adventure, education and science.