Dutch Springs Ultimate Diver Challenge Regional Event

[Scubafrnds]

Spend the Weekend Diving and Join us at Dutch Springs for The Ultimate Diver Challenge Regional Challenges.
STAY AT BEST WESTERN LEHIGH for a nightly rate of only $79 plus tax!


http://www.ultimatediverchallenge.com/UDCDutchSpringsFlyer.pdf

Dear Ultimate Diver Challenge Shops, Clubs & Participants:

You are invited to join the Ultimate Diver Challenge Regional event at Dutch Springs in Bethlehem, PA on Saturday October 20 and Sunday, October 21! Although our sport is typically a non competitive sport, our divers work hard to perfect their diving skills that maintain their safety and the safety of others. Our divers deserve to be recognized for being the best of the best. Divers will have a lot of fun practicing their dive skills, winning FREE equipment and products without the pressure of becoming the Ultimate Diver.

Regional challenges will allow divers to experience the types of skills and knowledge each will need when the teams compete for the title of the Ultimate Diver Challenge – Cozumel in 2008. For joining us at Dutch Springs, we will be provide your logo and link to our web site along with providing your shop the group packages so that you will have all the incentives to join us in Cozumel as a group next year.

Everyone who competes in the Dutch Springs Regional Challenge can win prizes donated by our sponsors ScubaGearPlus and Olympus. Current Prizes awarded each day: Whites Fusion Brand New Dry Suit, a Scubapro Knighthawk BCD, Atomic B2 Regulator, MantaRay Fins, Princeton lights, Pelican cases, Fashguards, ScubaDoRags, ScubaTubeSocks, BuddyBands, ScubaGoodHoods, OhMyTie and more.

As a bonus, regional participants that join us in Cozumel in 2008 for the International Ultimate Diver Challenge will be entered in an exclusive drawing for additional prizes including free trips and lots of scuba gear and products.


ENTRANCE FEE To DUTCH SPRINGS is $26.00 for the day.
Pre-Register by October 13th for $2.00 off entrance fee.

Schedule of Events
[events repeat each day]

8:00 – 9:30 a.m. Registration
9:30 – 10:00 a.m. Participant Briefing
10:00 – 2:30 a.m. Challenges Begin
3:30 p.m. Closing Ceremony & Awards

Looking forward to seeing you at Dutch Springs!

Pam Bertrand, Director
Ultimate Diver Challenge, LLC

816-765-7282

Ultimate Diver Challenge "The Biggest Event in Diving History" Cozumel, Aug 2008 - HOME PAGE


The Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel & Conference Center

The Best Western Lehigh Valley Hotel & Conference Center in Bethlehem, PA is pleased to offer any diver coming in for the event of October 20 & 21, 2008 a special rate of $79.00 per night plus tax. For reservations,
call (610) 866-5800 and mention "Dutch Springs, Ultimate Diver Challenge" to get your special package rate

 

[Thalassamania]

Sigh, ... just when I thought this concept had died a well deserved death.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

I won that. LOL! I just came across this thread when looking up the month the Ultimate Diver Challenge took place while updating my resume. Grand prize was a Whites Fusion drysuit. I just got fired for a FB post I made a year ago, so looking for a job. Anyway, Sam would have gotten a kick out of it if he knew I won the contest. I can picture him laughing and shaking his head. My teammate Serge Yeletskiy and I came in first place. The rest all went to divers from Indian Valley Scuba. Dave Valaika provided the drysuit. My teammate was gracious enough to let me have the one prize awarded for a team competition.

We had to perform a timed navigation exercise with multiple waypoints, a timed doff and don, a photography scavenger hunt, and a buoyancy challenge. We had an advantage in the scavenger hunt because we had scooters and tok pics of all objects and aquatic life. They were legal. LOL! We won the event when hovering horizontal in a 1 foot window for time when I did some of that time inverted. We earned extra points for that move.

I decided to post this info for posterity and mostly because I think Sam would have slapped me upside the head. We all miss him.

 

[TravisD]

How did that tie into the TV show that aired a couple of times? I think Ed Finck from Woodbridge Scuba won the televised challenge twice?

 

[Trace Malinowski]

How did that tie into the TV show that aired a couple of times? I think Ed Finck from Woodbridge Scuba won the televised challenge twice?

It was for advertising for the Ultimate Diver Challenge. Having regional contests that were not televised at popular diving places got the word out that there was an unscripted TV show like a diving version of "Survivor." You get on those shows through a casting call. Dutch Springs had hundreds of divers over a weekend, so the folks from UDC thought the event would catch the eye of prospective show contestants.

When I was a beach lifeguard supervisor, I came into work one day and my boss told me to take the day off and go to a mall where they were having a "Survivor" casting call. I arrived to learn you were allowed two props. My surfboard was on the roof of my Mitsubishi Eclipse, but I thought I had the perfect prop at home. I drove home and returned to the mall with "The Green Beret Gourmet" cookbook.

I did the casting call in my lifeguard uniform with my surfboard under my arm like Jeff Spicoli from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." When asked why I thought I would be the ultimate survivor, I pulled out the cookbook tucked into my trunks behind me and replied, "Because I have this. The Green Beret Gourmet cookbook. Chapter 1 starts out with how to survive on insects, and there are survival recipes all the way to Chapter 14 on how to prepare long pig, which is people. So, if the competition is too fierce, or I get too hungry, I'll just eat the competition - literally." I didn't get on.

Pam Bertrand of the UDC thought Serge and I would be great on the show and tried to get us sponsors to pay our travel expenses. Contestants on the show had to pay their own way to participate. So, there wasn't a direct tie-in like if you won a regional you automatically became a contestant on the show. It was still a casting call of sorts to find talent from participants and interested spectators or divers just passing by the event an inquiring about what the Ultimate Diver Challenge was all about.