The equipment is in storage, the pool has been emptied of divers and the theatre chairs have been put away. Underwater
Canada '98, the country's largest dive show is over and organisers are already planning for a radically different show for 1999.
Held annually in Toronto, Underwater Canada is a combination of exhibitions, movies, festivals, seminars and dive work shops. Run completely by volunteers, the show has been traditionally staged in late March or early April at the Regal Constella tion Hotel in northwest Toronto.
This year the show was hampered by a reduced number of exhibitors and an equally reduced number of paying attendees.
Despite the troubling attendance figures, Underwater Canada presented the best film festival it has staged in yearsFlorida cave
explorer Wes Skiles and National Geographic photographer
Emory Kristof not only premiered films about deep water sharks,
they also danced, sang and played harmonica up on stage to the delight of almost 1,000 divers. The show's film night also
included a tribute to Gene Hemsworth, the now retired executive director of PADI Canada.
Attendees at Underwater Canada '98 learned that next year's showits 28thwill be moved to another location and will be held on another date. This year's exhibition was held Friday April 3rd, 4th and 5th at the Regal Constellation Hotel on Dixon Road near the city's International Airport. Next year the show is moving just down the street to the Toronto Congress Centre and will be held February 26, 27 and 28, 1999.
"The new Congress Centre is perfect for our show," explained Marian Peirce, chairman of the show. " This is a large one story building that has been designed to stage big trade shows. Everything is on one level, so visitors will easily access the seminars, scuba experience, film shows and the exhibition hall. There is ample free parking, two top hotels are nearby and there are affordable restaurants within walking distance of the hall. This is the venue we need to produce affordable, family fun; leading diving into the millennium."
The scuba community seems to approve of the venue and date change. One week after the close of the show, 26% of the exhibition space had already been reserved for next year! The show is owned and administered by the not-for-profit Ontario Underwater Council. For show information call the Ontario Underwater Council at: (416) 426-7033.
Save Ontario Shipwrecks Goes CD
Wreck lovers don't have to get wet to see the shipwrecks of Georgian Bay and the Great Lakes. The Save Ontario Ship wrecks (SOS) has recently brought out a CD Rom detailing many of the province's most important shipwrecks.
The new Save Ontario Shipwrecks CD-ROM highlights several of the best dive sites that Ontario has to offer. Included are video tours of three of the most popular wrecks of Tobermory (Canada's National Underwater Park at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula), as well as surveys of five other sites throughout Ontario, site locations, still photos, history of the organisation, and much more.
Save Ontario Shipwrecks (SOS), was formed in 1981 to help educate the diving community and the general public to protect Ontario's marine heritage. SOS is a non-profit volunteer organisation with several hundred members and many local chapters across the province. The cost of the CD is $14.
Diving The Web In Ontario
* The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum have launched a new Website about endangered and threatened plants and animals in Ontario. The site provides users with detailed species profiles, by region, summarising information on threats, protections and recovery efforts. The profiles include range maps and colour photographs depicting what these hard-to-find plants and animals look like. The website address is: http://www.rom.on.ca/ontario/risk.html
* Darryl Koster is the driving force behind a popular dive Ontario webpage. Up for about a year, his scubaont.com is a celebration of freshwater diving in and around the Great Lakes. New to his page is a gallery of underwater pictures taken by fellow divers. Koster has a few pictures posted already and he is hoping that more divers will submit pictures to his page which is located at: http://www.scubaont.com/magazine/album/showcase.
* Ever wonder about the proper terms for scuba gear items? Scratch your head no longerweb users can now visit "Scuba Diving International Dictionary" on ABCDIVE's HomePage . Here you will find some very useful tables with all the terms of the underwater world translated in English, French, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Portuguese, Dutch and Finnish. The dictionary is located at: http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/7197/
Newsletters for Divers
Dive newsletters are the backbone of many Ontario dive shops. A new publication has been born in Whitby and a Toronto store continues to publish a popular magazine format news bulletin.
Brian Pollack, the owner of Dive Source in Whitby (a Lake Ontario port city near Toronto) launched his new publication in April. The Dive Source newsletter combines equipment information with details about the shop's own scuba club. To learn more about the new publication, divers living near Whitby can contact Pollack at 905-668-8566 or at http://www.divesource.com.
Meanwhile in Toronto the Waterline Sports store continues to publish Waterline, a 20 page magazine format newsletter. The quarterly publication lists courses, details product sales and carries stories about local and foreign travel destinations.
Waterline is located at 1953 Avenue Road, Toronto and can be reached at 800-906-DIVE.