Director tells of ‘desolate, alien place’ as he returns from abyss

Titanic and The Abyss director Cameron spent three hours on the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly seven miles down in a dark freezing and alien place. He is the only person to dive there solo, using a submarine he helped design. He is the first person to reach that depth, 35,576ft, since it was initially explored in 1960.

Sir Richard Branson is planning his own undersea venture. Sir Richard’s Virgin Oceanic deep-diving programme was to have started with a descent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench but it will now begin with a dive to the Puerto Rico Trench – the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean.

Sir Richard will pilot the submersible – slightly different in design to the Cameron craft – to a depth of about about five miles.

Sir Richard said: “I think this is the most exciting thing I have done. No one has been down to the bottom of this trench before. I have been talking with Jim about working together. We might be able to do the Mariana Trench as part of our programme as well.”

Cameron’s Mariana dive was the first time since 1960 that a craft had reached the deepest-known ocean point.

Cameron said he worried about being too busy with exploration duties to take in just how amazing the place was. That happened to Apollo astronauts.

So he said he took time to stare at the moon-like barren surface and appreciate how alien it was.

“There had to be a moment where I just stopped and took it in and said, ‘This is where I am; I’m at the bottom of the ocean, the deepest place on Earth. What does that mean?’” he said after spending three hours at the bottom of the trench.

“I just sat there looking out the window, looking at this barren, desolate lunar plain, appreciating,” Cameron said.

He also realised how alone he was. “It’s really the sense of isolation more than anything, realising how tiny you are down in this big vast black unknown and unexplored place,” Cameron said.

He said he had hoped to see some strange deep sea monster, a creature that would excite the storyteller in him, but he did not. All he saw were tiny shrimp-like creatures.

But that was OK, he said. It was all about exploration, science and discovery.

He spent more than three hours at the bottom, longer than the 20 minutes Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard spent in the only other visit 52 years ago. But it was less than the six hours he had hoped. He said he would return.

“I see this as the beginning,” Cameron said. “This is the beginning of opening up this new frontier.”

The Mariana Trench is about 200 miles from the Pacific island of Guam. The trip down took two hours and 36 minutes.

His return aboard his 12-ton, lime-green sub called Deepsea Challenger was a “faster-than-expected 70-minute ascent,” according to National Geographic, which sponsored the expedition. Cameron is a National Geographic explorer-in-residence.

The only thing that went wrong was the hydraulics to collect rocks and creatures. Just as he was about to take his first sample, a leak of hydraulic fluid meant he could not bring anything back.

The pressure on the sub was immense and the super-strong vehicle shrank three inches.

“It’s a very weird environment,” Cameron said. “I can’t say it’s very comfortable. And you can’t stretch out.”