James Cameron opens up about ocean dive

WASHINGTON -- The last frontier on Earth is out-of-this-world, desolate, foreboding, and moonlike, James Cameron said after diving to the deepest part of the ocean. And he loved it.

"My feeling was one of complete isolation from all of humanity," Cameron said yesterday, shortly after returning from the cold, dark place 7 miles below the western Pacific Ocean -- a spot that has been visited by only two other men. "I felt like I literally, in the space of one day, had gone to another planet and come back. It's been a very surreal day."

Cameron, whose imagination of alien worlds yielded the blockbuster movie "Avatar," said there was one thing he prkjomised to himself: He wanted to drink in how unusual it is. He didn't do that when he first dove to the watery grave of the Titanic, and Apollo astronauts have said they never had time to savor where they were.

"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 told reporters during a conference call Monday after spending three hours at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, nearly 7 miles down.

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

He also realized how alone he was, with that much water above him. "It's really the sense of isolation, more than anything, realizing how tiny you are down in this big vast black unknown and unexplored place," Cameron said.

Cameron didn't see tracks of small primitive sea animals on the ocean floor as he did when he dove more than 5 miles deep weeks ago. All he saw were voracious shrimplike critters no bigger than an inch. In future missions Cameron plans to take "bait" -- like chicken -- to set out.

Cameron said the mission was all about exploration, science and discovery. He is the only person to dive there solo, using a sub he helped design. He is the first person to reach that depth -- 35,576 feet -- since it was initially explored in 1960.