Derek’s Dive Domain

  Its time for that joke again! 

Well, last weekend saw the annual pilgrimage by divers down to the Custom House area of London, just outside docklands to the Excel exhibition halls for the London Internation Dive Show for 2007.  I must say that I was quite disappointed by the number of retail stands this year, there didn’t seem to be anywhere near as many as in the past, and so few with the manufacturers.   I did have a great time chatting to a load of the holiday companies about what the diving is like in their areas.  I do fancy another trip to Tenerife, although I would quite like to do some boat dives to a few different sites, in addition to the sites I already know.  I would also quite like to do Sharm at some point in the future, so I kept my eye out for deals in these areas. 

Oonasdivers have a good package for dives and accommodation at the moment, although I am yet to find a reasonably cheap flight.  Mind you the offer is open until the end of November so I have plenty of time to find one, all being well.

I had a good look around the retail stalls that were there, and got a couple of items from the bargain buckets, for example a brand new shot belt from one of the Beaver stands for a fiver.  Neat.

I also picked up a few bits and pieces, including a couple of single ended clips for holding things like my contents gauge to my BCD, and a spare mouthpiece for my regs, as I tend to have a habit of chewing my way through the rubber flanges eventually.

I was planning to go to the meeting suites to listen in on the talk about diving with sharks, but I lost track of time and it had already started by the time that I took a time check, which was annoying.  I understand that the talks were quite good again this year.  I know I enjoyed the ones I sat in on last year.

I had a chat with Hazel and Helen on the MV Valkyrie stand, and saw Janos and others around there as well.  I missed Vonny on the Scuba Trust stand though, which was annoying.  I entered all the competitions, but didn’t win anything, but I guess thats not really surprising

So, it was quite a dull show for me this year, just several hours of wandering around looking at stands, no try dives on the rebreathers, no buying loads of kit…. there is nothing that I need that is in my price range at the moment!

So its now time to change the kit around a bit, I have a few ideas for tidying stuff up, and re-routing some of my hoses, so now that I have the clips that I wanted, I will do that once I get my regs back from servicing (more expense - gulp!)