000 HOURS, MORE THAN SEVEN MONTHS, UNDERWATER. FROM HER EARLIEST YEA...

6,000 hours, more than seven months, underwater. From her earliest years, Earle had an

affinity for marine life, and she took her first plunge into the open sea as a teenager. In the

years since then she has taken part in a number of landmark underwater projects, from

exploratory expeditions around the world to her celebrated “Jim dive” in 1978, which was

the deepest solo dive ever made without cable connecting the diver to a support vessel at the

surface of the sea.

Clothed in a Jim suit, a futuristic suit of plastic and metal armor, which was secured to a

manned submarine, Sylvia Earle plunged vertically into the Pacific Ocean, at times at the

speed of 100 feet per minute. On reaching the ocean floor, she was released from the

submarine and from that point her only connection to the sub was an 18-foot tether. For the

next 21⁄2 hours, Earle roamed the seabed taking notes, collecting 15 specimens, and planting

a U.S. flag. Consumed by a desire to descend deeper still, in 1981 she became involved in

the design and manufacture of 20 deep-sea submersibles, one of which took her to a depth of