Meeting Don Walsh
I met Don Walsh the first time back in 2016. He immediately struck me as a very down to earth fella. He told me a lot about his upbringing, which was demanding. He immediately felt like a good friend.
We have communicated irregularly throughout the years since. Last time I heard from him was at the end of the pandemic and I wrote to him that I was reading Barry Lopez last book and who just died and that the two met regularly as well. He wrote he was getting older.
I write this, because on this day in 1960, Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard descended to 10,911 meters (35,797 ft) in the Pacific Ocean aboard the bathyscaphe USS Trieste.
A famous real first! And I know the Explorers Club have/Had a tribute with him today. I wish I could have been there!