We would like to dedicate  this expedition to Gregg Bemis, MARE’s  first Board chair and owner of the Lusitania. Gregg was a dedicated entrepreneur, diver  and long standing supporter of  MARE.  Born in St. Louis in 1928 and raised on the Massachusetts coast, where his life was spent “in the water and on the water.”  He also  was an avid soccer player and played into his 90s.   He majored first in economics and then psychology at Stanford University, before enlisting in the U.S. Marines during the Korean War.

Gregg’s biggest passion was  investigating the cause of the rapid sinking of the  Lusitania, and devoted more than 50 years trying to solve the mystery of why the ship sunk within 20 minutes, killing nearly 1,200 of its 2,000 passengers.   He also loved swimming, sailing and diving over the years, and    became the world’s oldest decompression diver in 2004 when, at the age of 76, he carried out an hour-long dive on the 91m-deep wreck.

​Mr. Bemis passed away just before his  92nd birthday in Santa Fe in May 2020. As one of MARE’s founding leaders we will not forget his dedication to the ocean and  always challenging us to do better.  He “is now on the high seas of a new adventure.”