It was their last cup of coffee before they set out to sea.
The crew of the missing Titan submarine stopped at a local cafe just before their fateful adventure.
After waiting days for the weather to break, they seemed thrilled that the fog had lifted Friday morning. They entered the Terre Café around 8 a.m. Friday, staff there told DailyMail.com exclusively.
“Before they left on their last expedition, some of the crew came in here and ordered a bunch of coffee before they left,” barista James Law, 27, said Wednesday from the same café where he served them fresh-ground coffee.
“There were about nine or ten. I could tell who they were because they were all literally wearing jackets that said Titanic on them. Everyone was wearing that blue OceanGate Titanic jacket.
“Whenever we see guys wearing expedition jackets, we just say, ‘What are you guys up to?'” Law noted. “The group came down and they said, ‘We’re going out,'” he said.
“They said they were looking forward to a good expedition. And a few of them seemed to be in a hurry. They were a little behind schedule. That was the first day that there was a lull in the fog for a while. They were in a hurry to go. They were excited to go,” Law said.
French explorer PH Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush are among those trapped on the submarine
Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman are also on board, along with British billionaire Hamish Harding
“They said they were looking forward to a good expedition. And a few of them seemed to be in a hurry,” said barista James Law, 27. ‘They were excited to go’
The crew of the missing Titan submarine stopped by their hotel cafe just before their fateful adventure
The crew boarded the Polar Prince ship, docked just outside the hotel.
“Literally, right where that buoy is, that’s where OceanGate left,” he said. “At this point I didn’t know who they were.”
The submarine Titan began its dive to the wreckage of the Titanic, 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, on Sunday morning.
Hours later, the main ship lost contact with the crew of five. The news came out Sunday evening after they were reported missing and oxygen supplies were running low.
Law noticed some crew members when their identities were revealed.
“I recognized one of the faces, the CEO, Rush,” Law told DailyMail.com. “And I recognized that British explorer, too.”
He was referring to OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and British billionaire Hamish Harding. Also missing are Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, along with French explorer PH Nargeolet.
His first reaction was to think of a friend’s brother, Marc Russell, who died along with his boatmate Joey Jenkins while fishing for cod a few miles away in September 2021.
“This whole Titanic situation has made me think about that, to be honest,” Law said.
‘Marc was cod captain and they were just fishing when the boat disappeared. The Canadian Coast Guard launched a massive search. When they called off the search after a few weeks, they sent sonar boats out into the ocean to see if they could find the ship.
They couldn’t even find it. All they found was a floating bait box.”
“The sad thing is that the last radar ping they got from that boat was two miles from port,” he added. “The parents could see where the boat sank from their bedroom window, if it wasn’t quite foggy that day.”
He said when the Coast Guard initially stopped that search, locals protested.
Law’s first reaction was to think of a friend’s brother, Marc Russell (left), who died along with his boatmate Joey Jenkins (right) while fishing for cod a few miles away in September 2021
The missing OceanGate submarine, the Titan, lost contact with the mother ship on its descent to the shipwreck on Sunday morning
“There were protests here in the city because they initially called off the search after a few days, and people were urging them to continue the search for another week or so. It was certainly a big problem here.’
“And last year some guys went hunting for turr, hit a shoal and the boat flipped over,” he said. “They found the boat, but not the bodies.”
Law is not optimistic that the Titan crew will be rescued in time.
“I think it is extremely unlikely that they will be found,” he said. “I really hope for the best, let me be clear. But it seems like there’s a good chance something bad has already happened. And when you’re so deep, with so much pressure, so far away, it seems like a very difficult situation.
“It’s not something you expect,” he said of meeting the Titan crew the morning they left.
“You live on the ocean, there are quite a few tragedies,” Law said. “But it only occurs to you afterwards that something bad is going to happen. They all seemed very cheerful before they left.
“I saw something on the internet that said something along the lines of ‘Titanic took more lives,'” he added. “It’s insanely crazy to think they stopped here. It feels sad, eerie.”
This image shared by the US Coast Guard is the first from the search site, some 900 miles off the US coast. It depicts Deep Energy, a rescue ship that has deployed remote-controlled submarines to search for the Titan underwater
Ten ships are on their way to the wreckage of the Titanic to try and find the missing submarine as the oxygen supply dwindles to just 20 hours
A flotilla of international rescue ships is now steaming towards the Titanic rescue site to try and locate the missing submarine.
Boats from France, Canada and the US Navy race to the site with the only specialized equipment in the world capable of making the 12,500 foot dive to try and find the missing ship.
The submarine lost communication with its operator, OceanGate Expeditions, less than two hours after its dive to the famed shipwreck on Sunday.
A glimmer of hope lit up the bleak search yesterday when the Coast Guard announced that “thumping” noises had been detected underwater. It remains unclear whether the thump came from the submarine, but it has now become the ‘focus’ of the mission.
Some experts say the fact that the sounds were even detected could suggest the submarine is closer to the surface than initially feared.