The DIY Submariner

The Harper’s Podcast

Exploring 2,000 feet below the sea’s surface is something only professionals—or billionaires—are able to do. However, the writer Matthew Gavin Frank found Karl Stanley, an eccentric submariner, to take him to the depths in a DIY sub off the coast of Honduras. Frank dived to the bottom of the sea against his own anxieties and explored not only bioluminescence and sharks, but also the sublimity of being “completely quieted” as a writer. Subscribe to Harper’s for only $16.97: harpers.org/save Read Frank’s essay, “Submersion Journalism”: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/07/submersion-journalism-homemade-submarine-honduras-deep-sea-diving