I was over in Sydney last weekend at the OzTek conference / exhibition, and thought I’d do a very quick write up.
To anybody even remotely interested in diving, it was a truly excellent set up. I’ve been to UK dive shows before, and typically these involve mass crowds of people buying up heaps of cheap junk at ‘show special’ prices. This one (as the name suggests) was more ‘tech’ orientated, and thankfully well populated, but certainly not crammed. The market place had a good selection, including Southern Cross Divers, MetalSub, Halcyon, Dive Bondi, a company displaying a large & small ROV, multiple rebreathers including Sentinel, rEvo, Ouroboros,,, you get the drift. I think there was a Scubapro stand there as well, but the guys were really busy with sticky tape, trying to stop the display regs from falling apart.

The highlight of the event had to be the speaker sessions;

Grant Graves: Free Diving Physiology
It’s quite unbelievable some of the things these guys are getting upto and how some of the physiology books are being re-written because of it. To be honest – this was the surprise lecture to me, and possibly one of the best of the event.

Rick Stanton: Getting Deeper into Cave Diving
A mild mannered chap, recounting stories of what it’s like to be on your own, several kilometres along a cave, at 220m depth. Classic comment he made; during deco, he stopped being able to get a good seal on his rebreather(s) and they started flooding. His (only) support diver came down to see him, so he took his Evolution. Once the support diver had left he just remembered, with 6 hours of deco to go, that he’d never actually used an Evolution before…

Richie Kohler: The Legacy of the USS Legarto
We are unworthy!

Richard Lundgren: The Narvik Project
GUE doing deep diving. Never have you seen divers with quite so many bottles attached.

Kevin Gurr: Anyone Can Build a Rebreather
Made me want to get a Sentinel instead of a Revo

Leigh Bishop: Deep Ocean Liner Wrecks
Top geezer; it’s great to know the fine art of pillage an plunder isn’t dead

Trevor Jackson: Missing Diver Search Techniques
Some very interesting techniques he’s developed on how surface support can locate a dive who’s drifted off post dive (as seems to happen quite a lot over on the aussie reef!)

Sadly I only really had time for the one day. Next time I go, it’ll definitely be there for the full event.

Sounds like great stuff Flipper! I should've got you to visit the Hollis stand and get me a mask... oh well.

What sort of things are you alluding to re Grant Graves?

Yeah, I did see the Hollis mask sat there on the stand - they did look mighty well made.

Regarding freediving, some of the issues discussed (some were observations, some were more scientific);
-> For many years, apparently it was believe that once you got to a certain age, lung capacity was fixed, despite this, some freedivers are adding 50% capacity to their lungs.
-> Freedivers suffer nitrogen narcosis, but seemingly getting an equivalent scuba hit a double the depth (i.e. -> onsets at 60is meters)
-> Freedivers doing the serious depths, should run a deco stop. Tear liquid analysis has shown nitrogen bubbles forming from repetitive dives as shallow as 30m
-> It's possible to get an air embolism as a freediver
-> Freedivers have been able to pack their lungs to pressures previously thought to be out of the range of manageable pressure.
-> Freedivers are sometimes using O2 to deco after deep or repetitive dives
-> How far the records are being extended in terms of freediving depth; instead of plateauing, they are accelerating...