Bob Ballard Quotes

Sometimes she makes you very sad....she touches something in you, and you've begun to touch back. - Bob Ballard

But it’s too bad,” she said. “Now they are only going to remember you for that rusty old boat.” That rusty old boat. The phrase rings in my ears to this day. And you know what? She was right; mothers know best. When people hear the name Bob Ballard, they instantly think “the guy who found Titanic.

As far as many of the crew members knew, we were just heading out to resume the search for Titanic. Given the highly classified nature of the mission, the Navy would only let me tell those with a need-to-know status what was really happening. How could I conceal our first stop over Scorpion’s wreckage? It was south of the Azores. Titanic was west. I was waiting for someone to say, “Bob, why is the sun rising on our port instead of our stern?” We told everyone we were testing equipment for the Navy.

I kept pestering him over the next several months, though, and he finally tried to pacify me. “Look, Bob, you can do whatever you want, but you gotta do it within the time and within the money, and that’s it.” Only if I fulfilled the assignments on the two sub wrecks could I squeeze in Titanic. He also agreed to provide me with an additional three million dollars over five years, bringing the Navy total to five million dollars.