I knelt down on one knee and leant in close beside the wheelchair of Dr. Lee Somers to catch a few words of advice from the soft voice of one of this year’s DEMA “Reaching out award” recipients and founding member of the OWUSS. These words may not only be the key to his successful career and impact in the diving industry, but to a Rolex scholar invaluable advice as I endeavor to make the most out of this unique yearlong opportunity among the current leading specialists in the diving industry from around the world.
These words resonated on a frequency with a theme similar to those which have had the greatest impact on me in recent times such as those by film maker and conservationist Jim Abernethy who I had the privilege to spend some time with in West Palm Beach, Florida earlier this month and I want to share his advice with you in a 30 second video below.
Walking around the largest dive show in the world, I was able to talk with many of the contacts and sponsors who make this scholarship possible and put faces to names of people who have been so generous like Ryan Canon from Reef Photo and Video and Ryan Crawford from SUUNTO. The event also gave me the opportunity to share what I had been up to with their equipment and the crew at Light and Motion who even played some of my videos at their booth.
The dive show was also a great place to engage with new sponsors and on the back of a visit from Jeff Hester and I to the GoPro headquarters (video link) earlier in the month, Katie Kilbride the media relations manager has generously offered to sponsor all three scholars with GoPro’s to help us document our upcoming travels. We also met up with Renee Pelissier from Ocean Technology Systems (OTS) who specialize in full faced masks. They have kindly supplied us with full face masks and communication systems which will allow us to talk underwater while filming which will add an exciting new element to future videos which I look forward to sharing very soon.
Lee’s advice was simply to stay in touch with those that I meet along the way and explained it’s all about people, it’s about networking and he encouraged the value of developing and holding onto a large and diverse group of people which will help you out to achieve your goals and this is exactly what the scholarship is all about. Our oceans and our entire planet currently face touch challenges, but as a team of passionate people we can be unstoppable. After four big days of the event, I marched away bubbling with fresh ideas, inspiration, new contacts and underwater plans for the future which I look forward to sharing as I continue to make short videos to document the journey and I would love you to join on the way.
