"There are lots of ways to find adventure and excitement in the ocean," says videographer Stan Waterman in the 1971 shark movie "Blue Water, White Death."

Too right. The documentary classic about the planet's most fearsome predator follows a team of divers from Durban, South Africa, across the Indian Ocean to Dangerous Reef, Australia, where in an epic battle between a great white shark and their metal diving cage, the divers finally eyeball their infuriated quarry. The documentary's thrilling footage became the inspiration for the 1975 movie "Jaws."

Waterman, whose theater movie credits also include "The Deep," will show his work and share underwater adventures at the Waikiki Aquarium on July 10.

Offscreen, Waterman's life has been one long adventure, above and below oceans as far apart as the Aegean, the Red Sea and the South Pacific.

He's filmed in the Amazon, in Polynesia, around the Solomon Islands, the Mediterranean, Aldabra in the Seychelle Islands, Cocos Keeling, Australia, and the Turks and Caicos Islands in the North Atlantic.

In 50 years of exploring sea caves and canyons, few marine creatures escaped his lens. Waterman (yes, that's his real name) is an intimate of the sea dragon, ocean eels, giant sponges, manta rays and puffers as well as more bizarre species such as the venomous stone fish that sits motionless on the sea floor. His calm, eloquent video voiceovers describe fish habits and habitats like family members.

But it's the great white shark, the creature he calls the "big thing in the sea, the big challenge," that has made him famous.

In a memorable sequence in "Blue Water, White Death," Waterman, along with diving companions Peter Gimbel and Ron and Valerie Taylor, leave the safety of the cages to swim in open ocean with hundreds of feeding sharks — at night. As the sharks bump and rub against them, the team uses their cameras and poles to simply bat them away.

LIFELONG PASSION

A great white shark shakes the divers' cage in the movie's final scenes. It's the first footage of the shark ever presented.

In an interview with Fathoms magazine, Waterman later described the filming as frightening but a "splendid adventure."

Waterman began diving 70 years ago (he's 86) in Palm Beach, Fla. In the 1950s, inspired by Jacques Cousteau's revolutionary invention of the Aqua Lung, Waterman acquired the first one in Maine and pioneered scuba diving in that state. Around this time he also operated a dive business in the Bahamas with a boat he had built specially for diving.

In 1954, he produced his first film, "Water World." Two more documentaries followed. When National Geographic bought the rights to his family's year-long adventure in Tahiti in 1965, his filmmaking career took off.

SHARK LOVER

University of Hawai'i professor and fellow diver Marla Berry said Waterman is one of the true pioneers in today's diving community.

"Over the years he has produced more than 50 documentary films and videos that have been featured in film festivals and seminars in the U.S. and England," she said.

A winner of numerous awards including five Emmys for his television work, Waterman was himself the subject of a Discovery Channel 90-minute special titled "The Man Who Loves Sharks."

But even as filming sharks established his reputation, Waterman has watched the population diminish.

"Ninety percent of the ocean's big pelagic life has been reduced over the last 30 years," he said, in a video clip. "Sharks have been the hardest hit because of finning for shark fin soup. When they go, the ocean's chain is diminished. Sharks are slow to reproduce; their population can't keep up."

Waterman, however, has no problem keeping up. As an ambassador for diving, he continues to travel the world's oceans leading dive tours and giving lectures.

Following the aquarium talk, he will head to Kona on the Big Island to lead a tour on the dive boat Aggressor.

In the introduction to his first book, "Sea Salt: Memories and Essays" published in 2006, "Jaws" author and friend Peter Benchley pays tribute to Waterman as "an adventurer, a daredevil, a gallant, and a poet."

"The sea has a siren song," Waterman has said. "It reaches out and stays with you for the rest of your life."