‘Does this look like it fits’ I asked Jayne, the Australasian Vice President of OWUSS as I stood examining my new, hot pink drysuit in the mirror.

‘Perfectly’ She replied, as we added a pair of fins and mask to the growing pile of incredible dive equipment I was being presented with.

I was in Sydney visiting Tabata Australia, my new gear sponsors and supplier of all things diving related. Jayne and I headed out to Tabata in the early afternoon and were greeted by the friendly, cheerful and all around fantastic David Balsom, who took us through the warehouse.

This experience was truly overwhelming and I cannot thank Tabata Australia, Waterproof and Tusa for the amazing equipment they have supplied me with. Their support of the Australasian scholar over the years has been fantastic and I cannot wait to test out this awesome equipment throughout the year. As someone who has had the same (somewhat questionable) set of regulators since I was 13, and various leaky wetsuits (that once gave me hypothermia), I really appreciate the reliable, hard wearing equipment they have provided.

I was also provided with some great sunglasses from the team at Mako Eyewear. I want to thank the team their for their warm welcome, continued support and fantastic sunnies that I can take on all my adventures.

With the trunk of Jayne’s car full to the brim with dive gear, we headed down to her favourite spot at Chowder Bay, on the north side of Sydney harbour to test out the gear. We also managed to find the elusive frogfish thanks to Jayne’s sharp eyes as well as all manner of critters including eels, octopus, numbfish and nudibranchs.

The gear was absolutely fantastic and despite being in the water for over an hour and a half, I didn’t once get cold thanks to my new Waterproof W1 5mm wetsuit – a real achievement considering I’m usually freezing underwater!

Chowder Bay turned out to be a great dive and despite poor visibility, I was amazed with the amount of life that can be found under a jetty in the middle of Sydney harbour. The site is also frequented by fisherman and it was an eye opener to see the amount of rubbish surround the jetty including fishing line, lures and plastics.

In addition to my gear adventures, on the 16^th and 17^th of March, the Australian Advanced Dive conference and exhibition (otherwise known as OzTek) was held at the Sydney Convention Centre, Darling Harbour. I was lucky enough to spend the weekend helping man the OWUSS booth.

OzTek was my first ever diving exhibition and I was fascinated to see the variety of different exhibitors filling the hall. From dive equipment, travel, technical diving, commercial diving services and underwater photography, the show had it all.

In addition to the great exhibitors, OzTek presented a large variety of speakers on a huge range of topics over the weekend.  I saw talks on decompression sickness, research expeditions and underwater photography techniques.

I was lucky enough to be joined at OzTek by a number of past Australasian scholars who shared their advice for the year ahead. I would like to thank Matt Carter (2009), Stefan Andrews (2013), Melinda Brown (2017) and Olivia Johnson (2018) for their warm welcome.

On the Saturday night, a special presentation was given by Dr. Richard ‘Harry’ Harris and Dr. Craig Challen on their involvement in the rescue of the Thai soccer team from inside a flooded cave. As far as I know, standing ovations are rare at diving conferences, but Harry and Craig had the audience enthralled from the start. Their talked proved to be one of the highlights of the weekend and their humble, passionate and engaging attitude towards cave diving and the whole situation in Thailand was a privilege to watch.

OzTek concluded with a Gala Dinner where the annual OzTek awards were present. It was great to see Matt Carter, the 2009 Australasian Scholar, receive the Media Excellence Awards. I’m really starting to get a feel of how far and wide the Australasian scholar community is spread and how successful the past scholars have been in their various fields.

Whilst in Sydney I also had the chance to visit PADI HQ in French’s forest thanks to the hospitality of Danny Dwyer, Regional Vice President of PADI Asia Pacific. This was not my first trip to HQ, as I was lucky enough to complete my PADI open water scuba instructor exams there in 2016. Danny showed us around the offices where we met with marketing, training and development, warehouse and memberships teams. We also met with the amazing guys at Project Aware to learn all about their impressive conservation efforts.

Visiting PADI HQ was an awesome experience and really interesting to see how it all works. My adventures underwater started with PADI when I was 13 years old and first learning to dive. My PADI training has played a huge role in me aspiring to the Rolex Scholarship and a career underwater. I have continued through the certifications since them and am now an Open Water Scuba Instructor, able to pass on my passion for diving to others. Becoming a PADI diver opens up a whole new world, and if you are thinking about trying Scuba Diving, I cannot recommend it more.

I would like give a massive thanks to Jayne Jenkins and Colin Kesteven for their fantastic hospitality whilst I have been in Sydney. Their dedication to the scholarship and scholars is evident from the minute you meet them and they play a huge role in the success of the scholarship in Australasia.