LIDS 2012 – Speaker Presentations
FORMER WORLD record-holder Fred Buyle swapped world-class competition diving for freediving with a purpose – or rather, freediving with a great white or tiger shark, or on deep wrecks, you name it. He often takes trainee freedivers with him, spends a lot of time tagging sharks, and has a uniquely stripped-down style of underwater photography. Don’t miss Fred at LIDS.
Alex Mustard is another photographer with a recognisable style. At LIDS he shares the secrets of shooting to wow a jury in “Become the Champ – How to Win Underwater Photography Contests”.
PADI’s new Self-Reliant Diver course has brought the subject of solo-diving into sharp focus, and if you didn’t catch it at Birmingham, don’t miss technical instructor Mark Powell’s perceptive take on the subject. He’ll reveal just how many UK incidents are known to have been caused by solo-diving.
The Deeptrek team is an international group of divers who combine hard-nosed expertise in commercial salvage techniques with a passion for solving momentous historical mysteries. Searching for Ben Franklin’s Black Fleet remains off Wales and Sir Francis Drake’s warships off Panama are among the team’s most recent exploits, and one of their number, Rico Oldfield will be at LIDS to share the Deeptrek inside stories.
An unmissable pair of TV and Dive Show personalities can be found at LIDS this year. Monty Halls will be talking about Great Barrier Reef, the spectacular new BBC TV series. Catch Monty on his stand during the show and grab a signed copy of his books or DVDs.
2012 is a big year for Paul Rose with its spate of historic Antarctic anniversaries. A long-serving former Rothera base-station commander, Paul continues to visit and dive in the south Polar regions regularly. He also has further TV diving plans – find out what this always-engaging speaker is up to at LIDS 2012.
Mark Dixon and Jeff Cornish of the Dark Star technical team will be at LIDS to talk about their amazing dives on deep shipwrecks around the UK and Ireland, including the liner RMS Empress of Britain, which they dived last year – quite an achievement, as it lies in more than 160m of Atlantic water! They described it as "one of the last big challenges".
Over the past 12 years, the Dark Star team has pushed the frontiers of discovery by exploring many deep virgin wrecks in often-treacherous waters. Big liners such as the Transylvania, Carpathia, Tuscania and Andania hold a special attraction. So if you revel in wreck-diving at its most challenging,or need advice on organising and carrying out any sort of expedition, and coping when things don’t go as planned, these are your guys!
Meet them all, and many others, at LIDS 2012.
