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