OzTek day 1!!

[almitywife]

hi guys.... today was day 1 of our OzTek expo and we spent the first 3hrs catching up with alot of people, stands and speakers and im super tired by all the action



the calm before the crowd....

the man himself on the left... event organizer David Strike with visitor Jason Blackwell from DiveDiveDive Qld

GUE instructor Liam and some GUE boys from DiveCentreBondi... nice to see they come in pairs as per usual

Halcyon stand with Richard Nichols on the left

NZ now has a KISS distributor who has a stand at OzTEk with some units on show

while Lance from CCD has a MEG and some shearwater toys on show to check out

Scubapro has some new toys and Rick was very happy to show and tell

Damo (aka diveoz Betti) was checking out some new toys at the ScubaPix stand

Richard Taylor from TDI is always fun to catch up with

Simon and Daryl at the DiveTek stand LIED to us all... they have no lollies!

but Chriso at the Zeagle/DiveTub stand has a lolly jar and almity1 was last seen raiding it for the fredo frogs (btw, happy birthday Em!!!)

and almity1 playing with the new liquidvision at the Zeagle stand

for speakers... today the aussies Southern Ocean Explorers group (melbourne baed) educated me greatly on some of the fantastic work that is happening down in melbourne... so many wrecks they have found in the past 5+ year ITS AMAZING and the fact they leave everything they find untouched made their discoveries extra special to me although had a friend or 2 of ours heartbroken a they had crowbars at the ready to go get the portholes but no gps marks

also caught talks by Jill Heinerth and Richie Kohler who both drew large crowds


hopefully tomorrow i will have some more stands and speaker pics for how and tell but if you are interested in the speaker schedule.. here it is http://www.diveoztek.com.au/pdfs/ConferenceSchedule.pdf






cheers


edit: to fix some pic links

 

[Jill Heinerth]

What an amazing show! Nice to catch up some people in real life that we only know by their user names on ScubaBoard. You Aussies really know how to present a first-class dive event and should be very pleased and proud! Robert and I will certainly return...now off to dive near Melbourne! -- Jill

 

[Sas]

I had a great time at Oztek! Looking forward to more pictures too almitywife

I enjoyed all of the speeches, in particular the Southern Ocean Explorers talk on Melbourne wrecks (as it is local to me, it was more interesting!), Jill's talks, Richie Kohler on the Titanic and The Sydney Project talk.

Was nice to catch up with a bunch of people too, including the Almities

 

[alcina]

My goodness, it's been almost ten years since I've seen Richard Nichols LOL

Glad you're having a good time.

 

[almity1]

My goodness, it's been almost ten years since I've seen Richard Nichols LOL

Glad you're having a good time.

Well if you come to OzTek 2011, it will now be 2 years