When you talk to people about the Our-World Underwater Scholarship and what it entails, they often ask where your next port of call is, in recent weeks when I replied Las Vegas, I was met with some quizzical looks. “Not much diving in the desert!” people would reply. While the large pool outside Caesars palace may be an amazing underwater diving experience I passed it up by keeping my dive gear dry for a few days and heading to DEMA (Diving Equipment and Marketing Association) the largest event of it’s kind. Held annually, DEMA is the ultimate networking weekend, with dive manufacturers, charter operators, resort owners, conservation organisations, and just about everything and anything dive related.
Meeting up with Jayne, Sue Crowe (Tabata Australia), and Jade Berman (OWU New Zealand Co-ordinator) all of whom I hadn’t seen in months we had a strong OWU Australasian team. With the greetings over I set off wide eyed and excited about the coming days, entering into the fray. What followed was a flurry of handshakes, introductions, smiles, and thank you’s. There were many familiar faces from the scholarship society whom I had met in New York in April or through my travels, it was great to see them all again. On the second night there was an OWU scholarship reception held, it gave the scholars a chance to thank all the sponsors and everyone involved within the society. Josh and myself had the chance to do a short speech and all three scholars put together a slideshow of images depicting our experiences thus far.
Taking a break from walking what seemed to be the never-ending isles of booths, Josh and I had the chance to give our brains a work out as well as our legs. Taking our DAN dive medicine for divers course, run in 3 parts throughout the weekend. The course was hugely beneficial and we even came away with our own stethoscopes!
My first DEMA experience was a great one; I updated myself on future products soon to be released onto the diving market, met a huge suite of interesting and influential people within the diving community and even got to see a bit of Las Vegas! Packing so much into such a short period of time when the final day of DEMA ended I was exhausted as I think everyone taking part was too.
