"Inside, as aunties prepared breakfast the kitchen a sanctuary from the humid, honking streets the phone rang. Don't answer it, one auntie warned. We're about to go shopping. But Winnie insisted he pick up she had intel. Hey, is this Andrew Rogers? a gravelly Australian voice asked. You've won a trip to see the Titanic. Winnie nodded enthusiastically but Rogers assumed it was an elaborate prank. I didn't believe it, he recalls now. I thought I'd won tickets to the Titanic movie."
"The surreal news was the result of a supermarket run: before leaving Sydney, Winnie had stocked up on treats at a local Franklins, where every $10 spent earned an entry into an unconventional competition. In a draw from 270,000 entries at Manly's now-defunct Marineland, Rogers took the $65,000 prize: a seat on the first commercial expedition to the wreck, 4km below the ocean's surface. A joint venture between the entrepreneur Mike McDowell and Moscow's Shirshov Institute, the mission used the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh and its twin submersibles, Mir-1 and Mir-2."
Bandra, Mumbai, 1998. Andrew Rogers, a 34-year-old Sydney greenkeeper, visited family in India with his wife, Winnie, and one-year-old son, Terence. A phone call announced he had won a trip to see the Titanic after Winnie entered a supermarket competition at Franklins. Rogers won a $65,000 prize in a draw of 270,000 entries for a seat on the first commercial expedition to the wreck, 4km below the ocean. The joint venture used the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh and twin submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2. Rogers flew to Canada and boarded the 125-metre Russian research vessel for an 11-night voyage among 16 ticket holders.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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