Beneath the Sea recap

Whew, BtS is over and done, and I am happy to have my feet up!

Hmm, what can I say about this year's diving expo. In some ways it was a blast, but there were also disappointments. The best part of this weekend was the people. One year ago, I didn't know many divers, and I didn't know much about diving, particularly local diving. Apart from my certification dives at Dutch, I hadn't really done any local diving a year ago. I didn't know any local divers other than the few people from Dive NY I had met at a Sea Gypsies meeting. This year was a different story. Walking around the exhibits, so many people stopped me and said hello. Some were fellow dive club members, some were aquarium divers, and some were crew on the boats I had dived from this past year (lots of large middle-aged men were eager to chat me up, ha ha. I don't think they see many young women doing local diving!). I wore my NY Aquarium Dive Team shirt and several people asked me questions about it. It made me feel so much like part of a community, it was wonderful.

I didn't have any revelations or pick up any fantastic new gear or decide on a new trip or anything like that, but that's okay, I wasn't really expecting to. I will do a few things differently next year. I probably won't buy a weekend pass. I'm glad I went Saturday and Sunday, but it ended up that my friends weren't interested in the Saturday night film festival or party, so I could have saved money on those. The Fish and Famous Gala on Friday was rather lame (cash bar, bad music, silent auction prizes way out of my price range). Next year if I want to go out Friday night I'll just go to the much cheaper and more age-appropriate Tech/Wreck party. And if I table for ScubaBoard.com one of the days, I'll get in for free anyway.

Yesterday was spent wandering the exhibits and attending a seminar or two. Dr. Mike, Sarah and Melinda came in the afternoon and we wandered around together. Notable booths included the Montauk shark dive charter (Sarah wants to do it too, I really hope we do it!) and the Florida Keys Coral Reef Restoration Foundation. I may do a trip down there sometime to help restore coral nurseries. I also talked to the Aquawoman Dive people, and it sounds like a really nice event -- Long Island women divers renting boats for an all-women day of diving -- but in the end I decided not to do it just yet. Even though I'm sure they would have accomodated me, I'll wait till I'm older and more experienced. Beneath the Sea has a lot of great deals on travel if you're ready to book at the show, but a lot of my travel plans are already set for this year and I don't have a regular travel partner. I meant to make it to more seminars, but I found looking at the booths to just be more fun, and unfortunately Sylvia Earle, the woman I really wanted to see speak, was inexplicably a no-show. Boo. Oh well. Then we went to to the Sea Gypsies party, and that was fun if loud and crowded, and then we got dinner, and then everyone went home. I would have liked to stay out later, but the truth is I was tired so I guess it's just as well. And OMG SO COLD OUTSIDE, wtf??

Today I felt like I could take or leave the show, but I had volunteered to table for ScubaBoard, so I had to go. Also, one of the SGs had told me her boyfriend could help me fit the blackplate and wing (a type of BC) I bought at the LI scuba flea market this winter. He did a lot of work moving the buckles around and cutting the webbing, even cutting himself in the process, and now my BP/W actually fits me! And I got to see a friend who was tabling for Sea Shepherd, which was cool. ScubaBoard turned out to be interested in partnering with Sea Shepherd and offered them a message board on the site, which was a cool little bit of networking. Total purchases for the weekend: 1 t-shirt (octopus), 1 tank top (Sea Shepherd), 1 dive flag charm for my Monterey Bay Aquarium charm bracelet. And lots of free posters, postcards, and stickers. 

Now it just needs to get warm...and the dive season can begin!