a breath of fresh air
The stars were out at LIDS 99. Steve Weinman was there to catch their acts
"Tanya Streeter will shortly be giving a demonstration of breathing on Stand 529," boomed the tannoy. Had the announcer said: "Arthur Blenkinsop will be giving a demonstration of breathing on Stand 529," you would hardly expect to be knocked down in the rush. But by Sunday afternoon at the London International Dive Show in April, free diver Tanya Streeter had established herself firmly as a bit of a star.
It had been standing room only on both Saturday and Sunday as she talked us through her record-breaking dives, accompanied by slides and video footage. The fascination was threefold. First, until 20 months ago Tanya was just another Cayman Islands snorkeller - now she holds three world records.
Second, the spotlight seems to have left her totally unspoiled and natural, which endeared her to the audience during her hour-long presentations.
Third, although she did admit to "problem knees" in her talk, Tanya embodies a type of physical perfection - lithe shape, fitness, control over her body - that is rarely encountered. She sets standards for women and, on the evidence of those in the audience, simply leaves men mesmerised.
Certainly Tanya took care to point out the presence of her muscular husband at the start of each talk, as if to remind them not to get any ideas - she was a free diver, but not that free.
And the breathing demonstration? It involved sucking in her stomach until a wasp would have envied it, and taking in air in such a way that not a single rib-cracking cubic centimetre was wasted. Her audience looked on with gobsmacked devotion.
Breathing space is one of the best things about the airy Grand Hall at Olympia: the place soaks up thousands of people. Numbers of visitors were on a par with last year's record attendance, even though, being later in the year, the diving season was already underway. But even at the Show's busiest it was usually easy enough to move between the 155 stands and displays without feeling pressured.
The massive glass roof contributes to the open feeling, and gave the Diver airship plenty of room to manoeuvre above the throng. Down below an awful lot of equipment was being poked, prodded and sold, including the more rarified and expensive items. AP Valves, for example, was surprised to have sold the four Buddy Inspiration rebreathers it brought along within hours of the opening, and went on taking orders steadily throughout the show.
Holiday companies were also reporting healthy order-taking; the impending millennial celebrations seem to be putting people in the mood to think big about their travel plans and moving fast to book.
Despite a few audio-visual problems, many visitors were moved to comment on the high quality of the speakers at this year's LIDS. Tanya was not the only star; equally big crowds packed in for presentations by two men who have enjoyed intimate encounters with a pair of sisters - the Titanic and the Britannic.
"Who here is not a diver?" Ralph White asked the audience at the start of his talk. Few hands went up - perhaps non-divers thought they would be asked to stand at the front. "Who has been down a thousand feet?" No takers.
Ralph's experiences are way out of the ordinary - he has dropped the 3600m to the Titanic so many times that his submersible must have a reserved parking space. He can take the pressure, even though it's about 6000psi - enough to turn the human body into "a can of consommé", as he delicately puts it.
It took 56 days of searching before one of the liner's 29 boilers was located back in 1985. Ralph was there, and shared with us his first sight of the prow of the vessel. We looked with him at the ship's safe - contents disappointing - and shared his excitement at finding the bag that contained a fortune in jewellery, gold coins, watches and banknotes, though he doesn't subscribe to the view that it was the loot of a shipboard burglar.
The most valuable item still to be recovered from the wreck is a ruby-encrusted book, says Ralph, but he reckons the greatest prize of all will be the ship's log.
After all that, Nick Hope's recent expedition to dive the Britannic at 120m might have seemed like a mere dip in the Med, but this wreck continues to exercise a powerful grip on the imagination. The Titanic is a diver's fantasy, but the audience could relate readily to diving on its sister-ship, complicated technical exercise though it was.
The story is well-known, thanks to Nick's graphic account in Diver and from his team's own website. It is to his credit that he made the experience seem fresh as he Aquazepped his way around the wreck and talked us through a selection of intriguing images of what he found.
Kevin Gurr's team had been the last on the Britannic, and it was interesting to compare Nick Hope's footage of his expedition's decompression arrangements with those on Kevin's latest deep-diving project off a coral atoll in Guam.
We aren't used to seeing bubbles going downwards, but that was exactly what we saw on a video of the Guam team's deco stops, as they hung in awesome currents like washing on a line. They could be there for four hours at a time, so it was as well that they were locked on - otherwise it was "next stop Japan".
Kevin had the unenviable task of being warm-up man up each day, but he had an interesting tale to tell of his search with Billy Deans for the Nuestro Senora Del Pilar. The Spanish galleon ran aground on its way from Manila to South America in 1715, but when a gold medallion, silver coins and cannonballs started turning up around the reef, exploration got underway beyond the drop-off.
Irresistible ingredients: hot, wet conditions, a slow steel netboat, a metal detector so powerful the divers had to avoid wearing steel, elderly but efficient US Navy rebreathers and a water dredge that would suck up the masks and computers of anyone who strayed too close. They found thousands of keel-pins, musket ball and ballast stones, and the next stage is to find out what lies beyond 80m.
There was a lot more to take in at LIDS: Mark Webster's photography masterclasses drew the underwater photographers, some of whom had heard about the impending Image 99 competition organised by Diver, and were hoping to absorb a bit of winning advice (if you missed Mark, turn to page 52).
The lifestyle of Diver's own John Bantin seems to have made him the envy of many divers, as he wends his way around the world evaluating destinations and testing kit as he goes. At LIDS he frankly discussed how, by doing what he did, he appeared to get up so many people's noses. He then invited the audience to revile him as well by forcing them to watch his global slideshow.
"People came up afterwards and said: 'You're all right, John, we don't hate you'" he said later. "Which was nice."
Steve Dover, never seen without his trademark arab head-dress, talked us through his expedition to the WWI wreck City of Winchester in Oman: "I'm always fascinated by how you can swim down a little piece of string and find 6000 tons of ship on the end of it!"
And in the bar, weary visitors settled down for their post-show debriefs: "I picked up a new computer for £130... We're going to the Turks & Caicos on a live-aboard in the New Year... I saw Tanya Streeter breathing..."
LUCK OF THE DRAW
Six people can look forward to free diving holidays in the Bahamas as a result of visiting LIDS 99. Theirs were the lucky tickets in Diver's Show Draw.
The first prize went to financial consultant Russell Greer and osteopath Fiona Palmer, divers from Highbury in London. Russell bought the winning ticket only moments before the draw took place, and as a result of his timing the couple can look forward to a week at Abaco Beach Resort, their flights organised by Harlequin Worldwide Travel.
Medical illustrator and first-time Show visitor Kevin Marks from Wallington will waste no time in heading for Nassau and Clarion Resort South with partner Sally Ticer, and sampling the diving with shark-feed specialist Stuart Cove's Dive South Ocean. Flights are paid for by the Bahamas Tourist Office.
Software engineer Simon Ward and his fiancee Sarah Meakin of Fareham plan to savour their prize later in the year at Orange Beach Inn, diving with Nassau Scuba Centre. Travel operator Hayes and Jarvis donated the flights which, like the others, are with British Airways.
"Have I done something wrong?" asked Linda Lourenco of Purley when she heard her name called over the PA. Sports Diver Linda, of Edenbridge BSAC, had done something right - she bulk-ordered tickets to LIDS in advance and was rewarded with 10 week-long Red Sea holidays in the 10-ticket-plus Free Draw.
Linda and her buddies are bound for the new Blondie Beach Resort in Marsa Alam later in the year, courtesy of Regal Diving.
"You never think out of all those thousands of people you'll win," said Linda. "A lot of our group are new Sports Divers and were celebrating at the show by buying computers and cameras - now they'll really have something to photograph." The group will dive with Pioneer Divers at famous sites such as the Elphinstone and Sha'ab Marsa Alam.
Appeared in DIVER - June 1999
