Thursday, December 4, 2014

DEMA: Why Do We Dive?

A rebreather with intense safety features, a regulator with a coated spring, a volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic, and a man who is fighting paralysis with help from the ocean - last week is now a blur of seminars, new products, travel destinations, and fascinating people. From the moment I stepped onto the DEMA floor on Wednesday morning until I walked out of the convention center doors for the last time on Saturday evening I was busy. I was busy because there is so much happening in the scuba industry; unless I was able to get one of those time-turners from Harry Potter I could not possibly see everything. The enthusiasm level was high in the Las Vegas Convention Center as the scuba industry gathered to shared everything new and exciting to our water world.
        I was struck by how important this scuba diving world is to me but how proportionally so little of the public knows about it. A rebreather that monitors every aspect of my dive and alerts me via a flashing light and a vibrating wrist strap to any impending problems is significant to me because it is the safest rebreather I have seen, but it wouldn’t be of much interest to most of my neighbors on my street. A regulator with a coated spring and a groove system that keeps it from freezing is extremely interesting to me because I would someday like to dive under the ice in Antarctica, but to most people walking down The Strip this regulator (or any regulator) would be a foreign object. An island approximately equidistant from New York and London that is volcanic in nature and is giving divers the opportunity to see creatures uncommon to most shores sounds like the perfect adventure to me, but it remains a big rock to most. The man who lost the ability to do the things he enjoyed due to a paralyzing crash on a snowmobile, but who is able to stand on his own two feet underwater without help, brings tears to my eyes, because I know the power of the ocean, but it is just a cool story to someone who does not know how healing water can be.
       One of the main things I observed at DEMA is everyone who loves scuba diving enough to be at DEMA wants nothing more than to share our great sport with anyone who will listen. Most of the world’s population does not scuba dive, or, if they are certified, they dropped out of the sport after their basic course. Why is that? The question I heard more than once throughout the four days of seminars was, “What is our main motivation to scuba dive?” It seems like it should be so simple, but I found the answer to this question is as important to the scuba industry as is the answer to the meaning of life to a philosopher. Of course scuba diving is fun, but what problem in our lives does scuba diving solve? Why do we talk any listener's ear off about why they should learn to dive? There is no question we enjoy dipping our heads below the surface of the ocean, but why?

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