With just one deep sea submersible, Bermuda could become a major contender in underwater exploration.

So believes ocean advocate Oliver Steeds, who will be a speaker at TedX Bermuda next month.

“There are only eight deep diving submersibles in the world,” said Mr Steeds. “The United States has three, Russia has two — there is a worldwide shortage.”

Mr Steeds is the founder of Digital Explorer and Think Blue, organisations that promote deep sea exploration and raise awareness of the importance of the ocean.

“Historically, Bermuda has been like the Cape Canaveral of deep ocean exploration,” said Mr Steeds, who is also a journalist. “In the 1930s, William Beebe and Otis Barton took pioneering deep sea dives off Bermuda in a specially designed metal diving cylinder called a bathysphere. Their dives inspired other deep sea explorers such as Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard. Now Bermuda needs to start the shuttle missions.”

He said the benefits to Bermuda undertaking deep sea exploration are largely unknown — because what’s down there is unknown. Ninety-five percent of the ocean is unexplored, and only five percent of the deep ocean (deeper than 200 metres) is mapped.

“We do know that exploration has always driven our progression,” he said. “If we look to the early exploration of space and the benefits we are now seeing, they include the development of satellite telecommunications, global positioning and advances in weather forecasting.”

The costs of deep sea submersibles vary but can be anywhere from $3 million to $5 million.

Mr Steeds said he always dreamed of being a submarine pilot. His friend, oceanographer and author Sylvia Earle, has predicted that one day people will have personal mini-submersibles in the backyard the way some people currently have powerboats.

Mr Steeds called that prediction “a lovely dream”.

“I wish that were true,” he said. “I think the first step is for us to find a way to reconnect with the ocean. I think we are fundamentally disconnected from the ocean. Sylvia has been amazing about explaining threats and dangers from ocean destabilisation. People have to realise that the ocean is crucial to our survival on one level, and on the other level it is largely unknown to us.”

He said the tragic disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in March demonstrated just how massive the ocean is and how little we know about it.

“You had journalists looking out the window pointing to what they thought was wreckage,” he said. “It was trash. It is significant that when we have gone out to look at the ocean the only thing we have found is our own rubbish. As they have been underwater looking for the plane they have found sea formations we never knew about before.”

Mr Steeds said one of the things holding us back is that the ocean can be a dangerous and difficult place to explore, and the other thing is a lack of financial support from the world’s various governments.

“The amount of money put towards space exploration in countries such as the United States far exceeds the amount put towards marine exploration,” he said. “But I think it is something bigger than that. Fundamentally, we are disconnected from the ocean. All we see when we look out is a constant blue horizon. People sometimes think that the ocean is infinite.”

In his TedX talk, Mr Steeds will journey through man’s “giant leaps” and explain why he believes the next great frontier is the manned exploration of the deep ocean. Mr Steeds has explored or reported in more than 100 countries for ABC, NBC, Discovery Channel, Channel 4 and Al Jazeera — often in hostile environments.

TedX Bermuda will be on October 4 at the Fairmont Southampton. For more information see www.tedxbermuda.com. Tickets are available at www.ptix.bm.