James Cameron, film maker and director with huge hits under his belt such as Titanic and the more recent ‘Avatar’ just celebrated his 56th Birthday by diving to the bottom of the deepest lake in the World, Lake Baikal.
In celebration of his 56th birthday on August 16th, Cameron explored the depths of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest, oldest and biggest lake, in a Mir-1 mini-submarine. The Mir-1 submersible was the same type of submersible craft he had used for filming the 1997 epic Titanic and the same as the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin himself traveled to the bottom of Lake a year back. The 25 million year old Lake Baikal in the Russian Region of Siberia is said to have a maximum depth of 1,642 meters (5,387 ft), i.e almost a mile deep in parts. Cameron went to a depth of around of 1,300 meters and spent around three-and-a-half hours at the bottom collecting samples of the soil and such for research. Upon resurfacing, the crew opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the successful dive and the director’s 56th birthday.
Cameron’s love for scuba diving and the water has always shown in not only his recreational activities but even his professional life. Be it in the form of subtle influences he inputs into his movies Avatar or his not so subtle displays of his fondness for water in movies such as Titanic, The Abyss and even an upcoming film The Dive, it is ever present in his works. It is also rumored that the Ocean enthusiast Cameron, has said something about building a submarine in Australia that can take him 36,000 feet underwater. That is twice as deep as anyone has ever gone before!
Well till we hear of his next underwater achievements, whatever they may be we take our hats off to him making his Birthday not just a special and meaningful day but oh so very deep!
*Photo credits: photo by Sergey Gabdurakhmanov on flickr
