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The Great Diving Adventure Presents
March 11th 2008. 7.00pm until 9.30pm (£5.00 per head, all proceeds to the Shark Trust)
Understanding Sharks with Grant Bates
Of all the oceans denizens, sharks are the most enigmatic. Enshrined in folklore and immortalised on the big screen, sharks have long fascinated people. For many years that fascination was based on fear and revulsion.. But in more recent times, attitudes have started to change. At the forefront of promoting shark awareness are divers. We are the group that most often encounters sharks naturally in the wild. And by sharing our one on one experiences with the wider public, through our photographs and videos, we are beginning to make people care about them.
With sharks under ever increasing threat from overfishing on a gigantic scale, they need all the support they can get. The Shark Trust is dedicated to helping to protect sharks. We're delighted that our good friend Grant Bates has agreed to make a special presentation for Ocean Optics - Mavericks Diving about sharks and the Shark Trust. Grant is a Shark Trust trustee and a shark expert who has dived with them around the world. He will provide you with an intriguing insight into shark biology that will really increase your understanding of sharks and enrich your next diving experience with them. Grant will also explain about his work with the Shark Trust and expand on how, as individual divers, we can each contribute to their protection.
The Shark Trust is an organisation that Ocean Optics - Mavericks Diving does try and support when we can. All of us have been drawn to sharks and have been fortunate to dive with top shark experts including Andy Cobb and Andre Hartman. With Grant's help we launched Shark Day at London Aquarium last year with support from shark encounter and photography specialists Gavin Parsons, Mark Addisson and Tom Peschak.
If you are as addicted to sharks as we are, you won't want to miss Grant Bate's presentation.
2nd Talk
Dive into History, explore the waters that inspired sport
diving in just a long weekend with Alex Diamond
During the 1920's, 30s' and 40's one small stretch of coastline inspired first the sport of goggling and then aqualunging. Here Guy Gilpatric openned "The Complete Goggler" and popularised snorkelling. As a young man Hans Hass patrolled these same waters with harpoon in hand. Yves LePriuer invented the first recreational scuba unit and then formed the first diving club to let others tour beneath the sea using it. Crucially, Jacques Cousteau first ducked his head underwater here and was set on the glidepath that created the aqualung to which all modern sport divers owe so much. Just one location binds the pioneers who made sport diving actually happen. It's still clear, it's still warm and it's still festooned with wrecks and teeming with life. And if you are looking for quality diving close to home for just a long weekend, it doesn't get much easier. It's the South of France and Alex Diamond of Diamond Diving is going to prove to you that if you've overlooked the Cote D'Azur, you are sorely missing out on some superb diving opportunities.
This region of France has long been a favourite haunt of the Ocean Optics - Mavericks Diving team. Each year we attend the incomparable Antibes Underwater Image Festival and regularly dive from the beaches in our classic dive gear. Mark, Steve and AJ don twin hose regulators, leave the BCD's behind and throw on their 1960's cylinders to explore the same waters that diving's founding fathers did. In 2007 AJ and Steve hooked up with Alex, put on nearly modern kit (insurance and all that) and had their eyes opened to the fantastic diving to be found just offshore. There's certainly something for everyone. Photographers will find clear waters and dramatic seascapes to focus on, while fish lovers will discover shoals of damsel fish and bream, dentex, grouper and barracuda. For wreck devotees, there are not only great shipwrecks, many dived by the pioneers LePrieur and Cousteau, but also the famous "Rubis" - a full on mine laying Submarine. If you believed the only good diving lay at the end of a long haul flight, Alex Diamond will show how you can enjoy fantastic diving inexpensively over a long weekend just two hours from the UK.
The event will take place in King's College London, meet first at Optics. Please pre-register for the talks.
tel: 020 7240 8193 email: optics@oceanoptics.co.uk
As always, we all look forward to your company on March 11th.
Best wishes
The Ocean Optics - Mavericks Diving crew
