After disembarking the National Geographic Orion vessel in Fiji, I headed to Orlano, Florida to attend the biggest diving conference in the world; DEMA. This 4-day conference is phenomenal, with everyone in the diving and marine industry from around the world convening at the one location. This was a wonderful opportunity to meet a lot of my sponsors and hosts, many of which I had only communicated with via email, so it was great to put faces to names! I got to catch up with the team at TUSA who kitted me out with a full set of dive equipment from head to toe at the beginning of my year, Waterproof International who supplied me with wet and dry suits, Jim Standing from Fourth Element who sized me up for some undergarments and great clothing and Renee Pelissier Nelson from Ocean Technology Systems who has supplied the full face mask I am using. I also met up with many past and future hosts from my year.
Over the 4 days, there are a number of seminars held for the public to attend, and range in topics from photography, tec diving, dive medicine, free diving and much, much more. Additionally, there are also workshops held that are more hands on and interactive on similar topics that you can book in and attend. On the Wednesday night we all attended the Women Divers Hall of Fame event, where some incredible items and dive packages were auctioned off to raise money for the society.
On the Thursday night, we attended the NOGI awards, where Rodney Fox received an award for his distinguished service for his significant contribution to marine conservation (including the Fox Research Foundation) and film making, very well deserved. I felt so privileged to be sitting at the same table as not only Rodney, but also David Doubilet. Jayne and I had an absolute ball sitting at a table with such characters. Rodney even found some time to give me some words of wisdom.
On the Friday morning, the Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society held a breakfast, and invited all of the hosts and sponsors associated with the society, and we even had some young individuals who were thinking about applying for the scholarship in the years to come! Michele and I both gave a short presentation about some of our experiences over the past 7 months, showcasing some of the images we had been capturing along the way, thanks to the complete underwater camera that Ryan Canon from Reef Photo & Video and Light and Motion sponsors us with. Danny, who was in Bimini at the time sent through a short video instead because he was swimming with sharks! Next stop after DEMA is the Bahamas, woohoo!
