The Challenge

A drunkenness known as nitrogen narcosis is a factor of diving physiology. The first stage is a mild anesthesia, a gaseous attack on the central nervous system. It destroys the instinct for life.

--from The Silent World,

by Captain J. Y. Cousteau

All of his life, Hope Root loved the sea. A vigorous, barrel-chested (5 ft. 5 in., 170 lbs.) Miami lawyer, Root spent his spare time in or on the water, fishing, boating and swimming. Three years ago he discovered the new sport of skin diving with an Aqua-Lung. He discovered the thrill of plunging into the dark depths without the clumsy encumbrance of a diving suit, using only a mouthpiece breathing apparatus to equalize the tremendous pressures of the ocean's silent world. Unlike Captain Cousteau, who brought the silent world on to the printed page in a 1953 bestseller (TIME, Feb. 9) Root often said that he had never suffered from the nitrogen narcosis which Cousteau calls also "the rapture of the depths."

The rapture of the depths is much like the mountain climber's euphoria, the exuberant dizziness that blinds the climber to danger when the supply of blood oxygen gets thin. Divers fear narcosis. One came back from a record 306 ft. down, and lived to tell about it. Another, Maurice Fargues, plunged down to 396 ft., scribbled his name on a marker, and was pulled to the surface drowned, his Aqua-Lung mouthpiece dangling uselessly. Miami's Skin Diver Root determined to learn more. Why take the risks? Said 52-year-old Diver Root: "I'm going to dive for the same reason people climb high mountains. It's a challenge."

"It's Bad Down There." Root's plans for an assault on the record last week were carefully detailed. Three well-equipped boats bobbed around like corks in the turbulent Gulf Stream off Miami at the 100-fathom mark. One boat carried Root and seven other skin-diving friends who planned to station themselves at various depths along the 1/16 -in steel strand that marked the descent. Standing by for possible rescue work was a Coast Guard cutter. In the third boat was an oceanographer of the University of Miami's marine laboratories.The oceanographer would trace Root's descent with echo sounding gear, just to make the record official. As an unofficial measure. Root planned to pull a marker off the cable at 430 ft.: "That's the one I'll have to get."

The red small-craft storm-warning flags were being whipped by 25-knot gusts when one of the divers went over the side to test conditions several fathoms down. His report: "It's bad down there. I had a hell of a time getting back." Root was urged to postpone his descent. Placidly munching cookies and drinking coffee while almost everybody else, was seasick, Root refused to change his plans: "No, I'm itchy about it now. And the more you wait, the more static builds up. It won't be rough down below."

"It's Time to Get Going." Then Root strapped on his 65 lbs. of equipment: oversize rubber foot flippers, two cylinders with enough oxygen (under 2,200 lbs. pressure) to last 25 minutes at 400 ft., and two lead weights, a six-pounder to neutralize his own buoyancy, a three-pounder to aid the descent. Then, with a cheery "It's time I got going," Root donned his face mask and slipped over the side.

Down he went, past 33 ft., where the pressure on a man's body is already double, past the 50-ft. mark, where he paused to equalize pressure.* After the 130-ft. mark, the echo sounder's moving stylus etched the tale of Root's dive. After seven minutes, all according to plan, the stylus traced a steady echo at a new record dive: 400 ft. Root stayed there for three minutes. Then, almost abruptly, the echo recorded 450 ft.--beyond the limit of the anchor-weighted steel cable. Two minutes later Root passed the 550-ft. mark -- and the echo sounder's readings became too weak to be recorded any longer.

The search lasted until dusk. When the cable was pulled up, it had part of the story: Root had failed to detach his weights, as planned, failed to pull off a single depth marker on his descent. Why? Challenger Root took the secret with him down into the silent world.

* And where LIFE Photographer Peter Stackpole waited to take his picture with an underwater camera (sec cut).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.