DIVE 2008
Speaker Presentations
Make a date with diving's big names
Britain's Dive Shows are renowned for attracting as presenters the world's leading divers, all with their own specialities – wreck divers and wildlife experts; photographers and film-makers; free-divers, cave-divers and explorers.
Speakers at DIVE 2008 include:
Mike DeGruy • John Bantin • Mark Ellyatt
Marcus Greatwood • Monty Halls •
Lars Kirkegaard • Richard Peirce
Mike Rutzen • Saeed Rashid & Alex Mustard
The speaker programme is the same on both the Saturday and the Sunday.
CONCOURSE SUITE 1
John Bantin
11.00 - 12.00
A Job To Do
Nice work if you can get it? Being DIVER's road tester isn't necessarily as easy as it looks. This is one point John will be illustrating as he talks about his colourful career, testing dive
gear and writing about his travel-dive experiences for the magazine for almost two decades. Can anyone have tested as much different equipment, or visited as many dream dive-sites as John, who previously worked as an advertising photographer? He certainly has no shortage of illuminating anecdotes at his fingertips - as you'll find out.
To download interviews with John Bantin and Monty Halls CLICK HERE - MP3 file 12.47MB
Marcus Greatwood 
12.15 - 1.15
Effortless Diving
Expect audience participation in what is bound to be an eye-opening presentation by a Brit who has enjoyed success as a freediver and even greater success as an international coach. Marcus Greatwood, who runs the Dive NoTanx club near London, has coached competitors to four world and eight national records – including world champion Herbert Nitsch, on his world-shattering 214m No Limits dive. Marcus has also helped many scuba-divers to improve their breath control, and reckons he can add 10 minutes onto the average bottom time by reducing stress. Gas-guzzlers and smooth breathers alike should find this interesting. You can also see Marcus on Stand 1306.
Mike Rutzen
1.30 - 2.30
The Sharkman
"Sharkman" Mike Rutzen is set to dazzle with his accounts of hypnotising sharks in the open sea. Rutzen is out to prove that these popularly feared creatures are in fact sociable and approachable to those who understand their body language. In his TV documentary Sharkman he investigated “tonic immobility”, whereby a shark can fall into a hypnotic trance when it is turned upside down. Not just timid reef sharks, mind you, but unpredictable tiger sharks too. Not content with the view of great white sharks from inside a cage, few people can have spent as much time diving and interacting with these predators as Mike - but could he put a great white into a trance? Share an insight into this man's thrilling way of life from the comfort of your seat at DIVE 2008.
Mike deGruy 
2.45 - 3.45
The Deep Sea
You may have seen the three-part BBC TV series Pacific Abyss recently, with American diver Mike deGruy doing everything from finding new species of fish to plumbing the depths of the oceans of Micronesia in a pressurised Newt suit. Mike, a specialist in underwater film-making, has visited some of the world's most isolated and spectacular locations and helped film epic marine documentaries such as The Living Planet, Life in the Freezer
and The Blue Planet.. More recently, Mike has been studying the strange life-forms that live as far as 4250m, using the Alvin, Deep Rover, MIR and Johnson Sea Link submersibles. Dive sites for him have included dead whales, underwater lakes, hydrothermal vents, cold seeps – and the Titanic! Stand by for extraordinary scenes.
CONCOURSE SUITE 2
Richard Peirce 
11.15 - 12.15
Sharks in British Seas
Chairman of the Shark Trust and founder of the Shark Conservation Society, Richard Peirce is one of Britain’s leading guardians of the shark, and has made it his mission to try to
bring the existence of the 30-plus species found in our waters
to public attention. He recently began work with Simon Spear
putting together a film to go with his new book, Sharks in British Seas – and if you go along to his talk, you’ll get to see what should be a fascinating preview.
Mark Ellyatt 
12.30 - 1.30
Deep Wreck Adventures
Mark's name is synonymous with everything that is deep, and
the former world record depth-holder is constantly thinking about
new challenges. Deep treasure wrecks are his current preoccupation, and why not? In between combing the West Country for lost wrecks beyond the reaches of but a few, one wreck that remains high on his agenda after several years is
HMS Victoria, the on-end deep wreck off Lebanon that is stubborn in retaining its secrets but which is rumoured to house considerable treasures. The historic warship was a Victoria-class Royal Navy battleship that sank in 1893 after colliding with another vessel of the fleet during manoeuvres, taking 358 crew down with her. We look forward to the next episode in this fantastic saga.
Lars Kirkegaard 
1.45 - 2.45
The Fu Shan Hai
The 70,000-tonne, 225m Fu Shan Hai, wrecked off the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic, is one of the biggest wrecks within easy striking distance of the UK. Heading home from
Latvia with a cargo of fertiliser, this massive Chinese freighter sank just five years ago when it collided with a smaller but, as it proved, tougher vessel. It now lies 70m down in a shipping lane, but it was only once a ban on diving it had been lifted that sports divers could access it. One of the first there was Danish technical diver and underwater photographer Lars Kirkegaard (you can read his exciting account of extreme drift-diving in Norway in this issue). Join Lars to find out more, and to see footage of this remarkable wreck.
Monty Halls 
3.00 - 4.00
Beachcomber Cottage
Famed as much for never having an empty seat at his presentations as for his Great Ocean Adventures TV series and Swimming with Giants film, Monty Halls returns to DIVE 2008.
This time he is previewing his TV project Beachcomber Cottage, a series to be shown on BBC early next year. Monty has spent most of this summer living on a beach on the west coast of Scotland, and we trust that he found time not only to film the
land-dwellers but to dive and snorkel with the resident and seasonal marine life. Come along for a sneak preview of the programmes. You can also see Monty on Stand 1304.
To download interviews with John Bantin and Monty Halls CLICK HERE - MP3 file 12.47MB
SEMINAR ROOM 21
Saeed Rashid, Alex Mustard & Cameras Underwater 
2.30 - 4.00
Digital Photo Clinic
Photoshop guru Saeed Rashid and leading underwater photographer Alex Mustard will be ready to answer all your digital photography questions in the popular Digital Clinic
Note: All sessions, presentations and features may be subject to change without notice. The organisers accept no responsibility for the staements made in this preview, nor for any errors or omissions that may have occured.
The Show Scene
