Surface Interval #004 (mp3 – 14MB – 40min)

LISTEN HERE TO SURFACE INTERVAL

With Bear off being Party Bear, and Andrew as the oncall Dr Bowie, Des was joined for the first episode of 2006 by Neil “Webguy” Miller of Dive-Oz.

Webby gave an update on Dive Oz’s progress. Having recently celebrated the 7th birthday of Dive-Oz, Webby revealed that in 2005 over 1.1 million visitors visited the site. The forums are the most active part, and a real sense of community among forum members is shared.

We discussed community in the diving world, with divers being a sociable mob. Divers like to talk about diving, and with the eyes of non-divers quickly glazing over when the subject comes up, online communities like Dive-Oz, and indeed Surface Interval, are great venues.

Webby told us about his most recent dive at Inscription Point, in Sydney, where he saw a unique fish, the Weedy Sea Dragon.

We chatted a bit about underwater photography and GPS. In the case of underwater photography, the topic really focused (’scuse the pun) on the digital revolution and how thats drawn many new people into the pursuit. With instant gratification and greater affordability, underwater photography is much more accessible than it was in the era of slide film on Nikonos and Sea and Sea Motormarine cameras. The era that Des and Webby both started out in.

GPS is now being used to quickly find dive sites, and again is becoming affordable and easy.

In the first half of 2006, Dive-Oz will be adding new features to allow gadget loving divers to get more out of their gadgets, for their diving. Stay tuned…..

Finally we discussed the story of the British woman who married a dolphin in Aqaba in the past week.

If you’ve got a Skype account, shoot us an email with your account details. You never know – we’re often looking to ambush divers into the show to talk diving with us!

As always, comments are appreciated. Comment below on this post, or shoot an email to surfaceinterval@gmail.com.

Surface Interval #004 (mp3 – 14MB – 40min)

LISTEN HERE TO SURFACE INTERVAL

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2006 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.