MONTREAL - After reaching for the stars, Sir Richard Branson is now aiming in the other direction -- the billionaire businessman plans to plunge into the depths of the ocean.
Branson was in Montreal promoting Virgin Oceanics, his latest business venture which begins with the development of a new three-man submarine for underwater flight.
The sub, christened the "Necker Nymph," is due to arrive this month in the British Virgin Islands where Branson lives on the island of Necker.
It will plunge to about 40 metres below the ocean's surface and allow passengers to view the wonders of the sea "without having to be a trained diver," said a speech Branson was to deliver Tuesday.
"The Nymph in time will be followed by new generations of submarines able to get way down, farther than we've ever been before," said the prepared text for his remarks at McGill University.
Branson cracks that potential customers "may find treasure" because he has a map of the Caribbean with 200 shipwrecks listed on it.
Virgin Galactic, one of Branson's most recent companies, has already booked 300 astronauts for trips into sub-orbital space.
If testing goes well, the two-hour commercial space flights are expected to start before 2013.
SpaceShip Two would be launched from a carrier plane, with space tourists eventually reaching a height of 110 kilometres above the Earth.
Branson's speech suggests Virgin Galactic customers who make space-flight reservations might also share the common interest of exploring the oceans' uncharted waters.
The speech was prepared for delivery to management students at McGill University. It also touched on the turbulent economic times -- which Branson described as the most surprising period in his 40 years as a businessman.
But there's a silver lining, he said.
"Out of every crisis comes opportunity and it is now that entrepreneurs and dynamic companies can make a real impression," said the speech.
Branson noted that he founded and grew Virgin Records "in the teeth of the recession" of the early 1970s.
He also expanded his airline Virgin Atlantic "through the storm of the late 1980s and early 1990s and built Virgin Mobile after the dot-com crash of the late 1990s."
Not all his ventures were about turning a profit.
Branson set up a charitable condom company when, he says, it looked like Aids could become as big a problem in the West as it had done in Africa.
One goal was to encourage people to use condoms.
He said the condom company also made mistakes and received complaints, including one letter from a young woman.
"I wrote back a grovelling apology, only to receive -- almost nine months later -- a beautiful picture of mother and daughter asking me to be godfather," he says.
"So through founding Mates, I also managed to find myself another goddaughter. . . If only all complaints had such an adorable result."
