Diver’s Jobs Range From Tropics To The Antarctic

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29383, 9 December 1960, Page 19

Diver’s Jobs Range From Tropics To The Antarctic

Wrestling with sharks in aquariums in film studios, taking motion-picture shots of fish life in the tropical waters of the West Indies, and diving under ice in cold Canadian mid-west lakes are some of the jobs done by an American, Mr Jim Thorne, who -Is at present in Christchurch waiting to sail to the Antarctic in the United States Navy icebreaker Edisto.

In the Antarctic he will dive below the McMurdo Sound ice to photograph the results of an icemelting process that will be tried out next month.

A former newspaper reporter and a major in the active reserve of the United States Army, he has also had talking parts in four Hollywood films, stand-in jobs also for underwater sequences in other. films, written scripts for 300 television shows, and published short adventure stories ■ in many well-known magazines. He is at present writing a book on adventures throughout the world. The last four or six chapters will be devoted to New Zealand and the Antarctic, he said yesterday. As president of a firm, Adventure Incorporated, which “takes still or motion-pictures anywhere in the world,” he has travelled throughout the United States and to many parts of the world with his camera and typewriter. For 12 years he has been diving in tropical waters and in cold lakes. His jobs have included underwater motion films and salvaging of ancient and recent wrecks. A piece of eight which he took from his hotel room

drawer had been recovered from a Spanish boat believed to have been wrecked in the West Indies in 1730, he said. Mr Thorne first became interested in diving while working as a reporter. In the course of this job he interviewed many surr vivors of small vessels wrecked around the United States coast.

“I was curious why small craft usually had about an 80 per cent, mortality after explosions, or wrecks, in spite of the fact that a coastguard vessel or helicopter might be on the scene within a few minutes.

“I had heard so many stories explaining that these people were killed by monsters of the deep that I set out to prove to myself whether sharks and other large fish really .were killers,” he said.

“I am now satisfied that most of the victims drowned themselves in panic. “In my experience of diving I have been within inches of sharks’ mouths, and have fed barracuda and moray eel by hand. All thesfe fish are alleged killers; but none is as dangerous as believed. The mako shark is the only one of which I am a bit wary. It is ferocious but it has still been photographed at close range,” he, said. “I have never personally known a diver to be killed except in murky waters. Sharks rarely attack in clear water, although they may become a bit curious.”

Mr Thorne’s deepest dive was of 310 ft. Thjs was in the Bahamas, where* the ocean floor is comparatively, shallow. “I went to the bottom,” he said.