Titanic Discoverer Bob Ballard Asked ME For Directions...

Captain Fantastic, Bob Ballard

For a guy who found a needle in a haystack, a mile below the surface and hundreds of miles out in the dark and desolate northern Atlantic ocean, Bob Ballard was clueless on land.

The Titanic went down 100 years ago tonight.  Yours truly was "present" - on the very fringes - at its rediscovery in 1986 and this was a huge, huge thrill!  I was working at National Geographic Television while Ballard's research and exploration grant was in effect, and during 1984 and 1985 we'd get news of hopeful progress that Captain Ballard and his crew were zeroing in - "vectoring" - and that the discovery was close, close, close at hand.  We had film coverage on board, in case he struck gold.

Ballard: "The actual ship was much, much bigger than this!"

The Holy Grail.  Noah's Ark.  The Titanic.  In 20th Century popular ambition, no lost object loomed larger, nor seemed more of an impossible dream.  In all the vast, deep sea, could one man and his team possibly find something so elusive?  The mind boggled to imagine it.

Well, you know the rest: the discovery, later the romantic movie.  In between Bob Ballard became popularized as a hero on par with Edmund Hillary and Howard Carter.  He went on to locate the Bismarck, and to found the Jason project that has educated and engaged thousands and thousands of schoolchildren to be budding scientists and researchers.

We rushed our National Geographic EXPLORER Special onto the air in December 1986 and earned the highest-ever ratings for a basic-cable TV show, with 1 in 8 Americans tuning in that Sunday night.  Later we hired Bob to host National Geographic EXPLORER and he did pretty well for himself - handled the on-air work with charisma for a few seasons, and ended up marrying a young colleague of mine.  Ultimately popularized by James Cameron and depicted by Bill Paxton in the blockbuster "Titanic," Bob is now a permanent icon of Neil Armstrong magnitude.

So, the funny thing was, one sunny day in the summer of 1987 when my UCSB '81 fiancee and I were knocking around Montecito in Santa Barbara, a block inland from the beautiful Biltmore Hotel near El Cabrillo and Channel Drive, a car pulled up, rolled down the window, and a friendly voice said "Hey, can you tell me how to get to Summerland from here?"

My companion yelled at him "Hey! You're Bob Ballard!! We work for Tim Kelly!!"  Immediate recognition (Tim was the leader of NG TV who had flown the edited Titanic show in his hands, via helicopter, to WTBS to make air).  We stood in the street shooting the breeze, recalling the craziness of the previous year's TV production, talking about this or that project that he was working on either at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute or as a National Geographic "Explorer-In-Residence," and eventually sending him on his way.

Where Am I?  ... And Where's That Darn Ship?

Now, get this: Summerland was about two miles south of where we stood, and on the main road toward Carpinteria and Ventura.  Nobody leaving Santa Barbara bound for LA could get far without immediately seeing signs for Summerland.  And here's the funny thing: much later I learned that among Bob's distinguished credentials he held a dual degree in Chemistry and Marine Biology from UCSB, so he had lived right there in beautiful Isla Vista for four years (he'd also been an ROTC student).

So it's inexplicable to me how a master-class navigator could have been so befuddled.  But we were happy to correct his course, of course, and did see a good bit more of him in his EXPLORER-hosting days from 1989-1991.  A sharp, driven guy with absolute leadership class, who dreams big and is never averse to being in the spotlight.

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