Report from the fair Underwater Adventure

On the first weekend of February, the diving capital of Poland moved from the Tri-City to Warsaw, more precisely to the Palace of Culture and Science. It was there that the second edition of the Podwodna Przygoda trade fair took place, accompanied this year by Nurgres. The event attracted crowds of diving enthusiasts as well as instructors participating in the workshops.

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The fair opened for visitors punctually at 10 a.m. Taking advantage of the fact that, so far, there are more exhibitors than visitors hanging around the fairground, we look at the following stands. As usual, the offer of exhibitors is a mixture of equipment manufacturers, diving bases, organisations, instructors and travel agencies.

As soon as we enter, the large Mares stand catches our eye. At the next stand of Sony, we see cameras, lights and housings. In addition, films shot with the presented equipment are displayed for visitors. Needless to say, they are of excellent quality. A little further on is the stand of Bare, with the largest exposition of the whole fair. Of particular interest is the new type of gas-tight lock used in the presented Bare suits. It is entirely made of plastic. The lock is much lighter than its traditional counterpart, and the manufacturer assures that its durability exceeds that of classic zippers made of metal and rubber.

During this year’s edition of Underwater Adventure exhibitors presented many new models of torches. One could clearly see a new trend related to the popularisation of LED technology. These were the torches that dominated at all the stands. Exhibitors emphasised the many advantages of this equipment, such as smaller dimensions, much longer battery life and longer torch life. Among the manufacturers of led light, the stands of Gralmarine and Ammonite Systems were the most popular.

Another novelty are the heating passages in the dry suit, mounted under the addition valve. This solution avoids making another hole in the suit. Santi Diving has even introduced an add-on valve with an integrated cable grommet, which has made it possible to significantly reduce the height of the whole valve.

As time went by, the number of visitors increased. At times there were even dozens of people queuing at the ticket offices.

See the whole gallery: Underwater Adventure 2011

A few minutes after 11 o’clock Nurgres started. The opening was done by the main organizer Maximilian Allweil. After a while, the first lecture led by Tomasz Nitka about the power of the diving reflex and diving after exhalation started. The presentation and its conclusions were surprising.

The next speaker was Agata Bogusz. Diving instructor, freediver, Polish freediving record holder. During the hour-long presentation, you could hear about techniques for balancing the pressure and test your strength during practical exercises with balloons. The exercises made it possible to realise what each of the presented techniques consisted of.

Next, there were 3 lectures conducted by PADI Course Directors. The first one, Witold Smiłowski, talked about diving with sharks. It was probably the best presentation of the fair. Then, Maciej Curzydło presented the history of decompression and explained basic terms in this field. The last speaker was Michał Kosut, who analysed the causes of fatal diving accidents.

Two films were shown during the following lectures. The first presented the deepest Polish dive at 264 metres, made by Dariusz Wilamowski, in Lake Garda. The second film documented dives on the ORP Grom wreck, which were made last year. The list of lectures that took place on the first day was complemented by a presentation on the Polish Underwater Research Programme, conducted in 2009-2010 in the Antarctic.

During Nurgres, workshops were also held. You could listen to Jacek Wendolowski talk about customer database management using Microsoft Outlook and PDA and take part in workshops conducted by TDI instructors. During this part of the program, Jacek Musiał talked about the ‘Diving solo’ training that the SDI organization offers, Marcin Chochorowski talked about preparing for technical diving, and Adam Wysoczański talked about TDI reabrether training. You could also watch a film of a 150m wreck dive on reabrechers, and afterwards ask questions about diving and training on this equipment. The last workshop on buoyancy in wetsuits and dry suits was conducted by Maciej Curzydło.

Unfortunately, a definite disadvantage of the workshops was their location. The room where they took place was on the 4th floor, while the whole fair was located on the ground floor of the Palace of Culture. Additionally, to get to the workshop room one had to go through the school disco, which increased the problems with finding it. And already during the workshops they were constantly disturbed by music coming from behind the door. This is an element which the organisers definitely need to improve during the next edition of the conference.

During the second day of the fair, visitors could, among other things, attend lectures by Kamil Jaczyñski, who talked about how he became a diver, learn about diving for children from Ma³gorzata Raj and take part in competitions for visitors.

In addition to the fair, lectures and exercises, the organisers prepared many attractions for the participants. You could, among other things, make a free inspection of scuba diving machines, get medical advice, and after the end of the first day of Nurgres, participate in a diving movie show.

To sum up, we consider the diving fair ‘Podwodna Przygoda’ as successful. We hope that it will continue to develop and promote diving as before.

See the whole gallery: Underwater Adventure 2011