James Cameron's Deep Sea Dive

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James Cameron's deep sea diving experience just got a little deeper. This weekend he became the third ever, and first person to go solo to the Mariana Trench's Challenger Deep, the deepest known point on Earth, almost 7 miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The 57-year old called the expedition, "the culmination from my perspective of a lifelong dream."

Cameron's vehicle, the Deepsea Challenger, was a film director's dream with its multiple 3-D cameras and an 8-foot tower of LEDs. What little space his 6'2" frame had left in the 43-inch wide capsule was taken up by digital recording tracks. As the current National Geographic Society's Explorer-in-Residence, Cameron's expedition will result in two films, one a 3-D production for wide-screen theaters, and the other a National Geographic TV special.

Avatar Succeeds Titanic

In addition to Titanic, once the highest grossing film of all-time, Cameron's deep sea films include The Abyss, Bismarck, Ghosts of the Abyss we all know and love. According to National Geographic, in addition to 33 trips to Titanic's shipwreck, he has taken some 76 submersible dives. You can relive the magic of the 1997 film starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet. Titanic 3D is set to hit theaters April 4, 2012, just days before the anniversary of its ill-fated maiden voyage.

After surfacing he had this to say about what he saw. "It was bleak, it was like the moon... I'm thinking man this is a long way down. When you go past Titanic, then Bismarck, then go past where the mirrors can go, and then you're still only half way there or two-thirds of the way there."
For more on the dive click here.