Yesterday was the 14th Annual Shipwrecks 2008 Symposium in Welland, Ont. It's put together by the Niagara Divers' Association. Usually it focuses on shipwrecks, as you might expect, but this year the concept of exploration was added.
Some of the presenters included:
David Trotter: Cutting Across Time
Bernie Chowdhury: Controversial War Wrecks of the Orkney Islands
Jill Heinerth: Explore!
Valerie & Jack van Heest: She Died a hard Death: The Sinking of the Hennepin
The catered lunch was fantastic. I'm guessing there were about 300 people there, a nice cross section of the dive community.
I enjoyed the show immensely. At lunch I wound up sitting outside in the little courtyard by the cafeteria. It was sunny and a bit warm (thank goodness coz I'm really tired of the snow). A woman sat down on the bench next to me and I asked her if she was a diver. She said no, but there was a diver in the family - her daughter - who had asked her parents to come to Shipwrecks 2008 so they could understand a bit about why she liked diving. I asked her if she liked the presentations so far. She said that she had no idea what was under the water, and now she had an appreciation for why her daughter dived.
She went on to say that Bernie Chowdhury's history of the Scapa Flow wrecks was really interesting as she is a history buff. What blew her away was the Explore! presentation by Jill Heinerth which was a retrospective of Jill's dive life so far. Sidemount cave diving, the Walkulla sonar mapping project, sump diving in Hualta, Mexico to research cave life, rebreather diving under and into icebergs and ice caves in Antarctica, underwater stunt directing/diving for Hollywood, etc etc.
I agreed with her that it was an electrifying presentation, and that the whole show was really enjoyable. It was really wonderful to see a non-diver get excited by all this diving.
So, hats off to the presenters and organizers of Shipwrecks 2008 for a job well done!
Some of the presenters included:
David Trotter: Cutting Across Time
Bernie Chowdhury: Controversial War Wrecks of the Orkney Islands
Jill Heinerth: Explore!
Valerie & Jack van Heest: She Died a hard Death: The Sinking of the Hennepin
The catered lunch was fantastic. I'm guessing there were about 300 people there, a nice cross section of the dive community.
I enjoyed the show immensely. At lunch I wound up sitting outside in the little courtyard by the cafeteria. It was sunny and a bit warm (thank goodness coz I'm really tired of the snow). A woman sat down on the bench next to me and I asked her if she was a diver. She said no, but there was a diver in the family - her daughter - who had asked her parents to come to Shipwrecks 2008 so they could understand a bit about why she liked diving. I asked her if she liked the presentations so far. She said that she had no idea what was under the water, and now she had an appreciation for why her daughter dived.
She went on to say that Bernie Chowdhury's history of the Scapa Flow wrecks was really interesting as she is a history buff. What blew her away was the Explore! presentation by Jill Heinerth which was a retrospective of Jill's dive life so far. Sidemount cave diving, the Walkulla sonar mapping project, sump diving in Hualta, Mexico to research cave life, rebreather diving under and into icebergs and ice caves in Antarctica, underwater stunt directing/diving for Hollywood, etc etc.
I agreed with her that it was an electrifying presentation, and that the whole show was really enjoyable. It was really wonderful to see a non-diver get excited by all this diving.
So, hats off to the presenters and organizers of Shipwrecks 2008 for a job well done!
