Several members of the Oceanic Ventures Staff have just returned from DEMA, the diving industry trade show. The purpose of the show is for retailers to preview equipment, training products and travel locations so they can bring new things back to their clients at home. The training agencies host parties and meetings to showcase their offerings and to thank members for their support in the previous year and in the upcoming year.
SSI is no different, hosting its annual dealer social at the Rivera hotel. It was great to see friends from all over the country – many of whom we only see at these events. Julie Footman was on hand to shake her head but to also offer her support to Ann for her 2009 Cold Water Diving Program to help her Antarctica divers gain some diving experience. We will be joining Julie in Maine after the group completes their Ice Diving Course, at Lake Winipasakui, New Hampshire in February (there is still room for interested people). Julie is the owner of Aqua Diving Academy in Portland Maine and has been a great source of information for a number of things including dry suits and repairs. She is also a good friend.
During the dealer social, I was awarded my Platinum Pro 5000 Instructor Award. This means that I am old and have been teaching a long time. The award is based on points made up of a number of things from Instructor Ratings to Number of years diving; but, primarily, it the points are the number of students I have taught over the eighteen years (see what I mean about being old). [Find out more about Eric and this award by pressing here or going to www.oceanicventures.net].
Jess Stark and Gary Taylor (a member of our adjunct faculty) were both honoured during DEMA this year. Both of these men have been diving a long time and have accumulated in excess of 5000 dives (Gary has in excess of 10,000 dives). They were among this year’s recipients of the Platinum Pro 500 divers award, given by SSI. They join a very exclusive club of divers representing the who’s who of divng. We were fortunate to have been able to nominate both of these people as well as two other designees – Lamar Hires, CEO of Dive Rite and Ron Carlo, manufacturer’s representative for a number of lines including Dive Rite. Congratulations to all of you!
Another party we attended was hosted by the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism. They always throw great parties! Of course it is even more fun since the Houston office is full of our students! It was quite an evening full of free drinks, horśderves and good company. Carl Griffing joined us at the party as did Robert Hew and Ian McKnight. Of course, Carl and Ashton seemed to have a better time than most of us – at least their evening lasted longer. I guess I’m getting too old!
Of course we did much more than party. The group attended Risk Management seminars hosted by IANTD and another by SSI. There were seminars on selling & teaching technical diving, recruiting, marketing, new camera systems, imprneung your client’s photographs, dealer product updates and new course offerings. We all had meetings with manufacturers and manufacturers representatives, destination representatives and a host of other meetings. Through it all, we also had some goals of things we needed to accomplish and some new products we needed to find.
And we did come back with some really cool things. Here are a few of the things we brought back to Oceanic Ventures:
- Komodo, Indonesia live aboard – The crew of the Archipelago Explorer II are excited about the potential of rebreather diving and with the help of Oceanic Ventures and Silent Diving Systems they are hosting the first live-aboard, all rebreather dive adventure in Indonesia! This trip promises to be and extra special experience and a real treat for rebreather divers! The trip will be 22 July 2009 to 2 August 2009, give or take a few days (Dive Mom is finalizing the air schedule)
- Cool New Lights – We found some really cool new LED lights that are more affordable than anything we have had in the past. These new lights, which come in a flood versin and a spot version use Lithium batteries and are rated to 400 ft.
- Inexpensive back-up Light – When you need an inexpensive back-up light that fits in your pocket or on your BCD, we have a suggestion. A 5 LED light for $9.95. Pretty cool find!
- Camera Spotting Light – This light is different from anything we have seen before. It is a spotting light with an sensor that shuts-off the light when your electronic strobe fires, keeping the different temperature lights out of your photograph.
- 8 megapixel Camera & Housing for $199.95 – What a find! As Dave said when he was telling us abut this at one of our morning staff meetings during the show, this makes photography affordable for everyone. New divers and experienced divers can start taking underwater photographs almost from the start. And, you can always add an external strobe later to improve your photography even more. We are so excited about this new starter camera that we have put one in the pool for our students to try during dive class!
- New Training Options – The new buzzword in dive training is on-line training. Ann, Dave and I have been watching this for several years and we believe that now there is a good product that will meet the needs of some divers. Beginning in 2009, Oceanic Ventures will begin offering On-line education as a part of its training program. Keep an eye out for more details on this program.
We believe that DEMA was very successful for us this season. We appreciate all of the staff’s help during the show (Ashton, Dave, Barney & Barbara at the show and Zaide in the office). I hope you will come by and let me show you these way cool things! If you can’t make it by, send me an message and I’ll tell you more about them.
