I went to the Scuba Show in Long Beach on Sunday, checked out the exhibits and ran into some friends. I've been planning on going to the yearly Scuba Show for 5 years but something always comes up. This year, I put the event in my calendar and made myself go to it.

Southern Californian's define everything on not how far away something is but on how long will take you to get there. This is because we are very proud of our traffic, and I can report today that we had a good traffic day, so I arrived in Long Beach in short order.

The conference costs $9.00 to attend per day and I got my money's worth.

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Dive Xtras

Makers of the Xscooter and other "X" products, they had a number of their products including scooters, video camera mounts, pockets and travel cases available and had a very busy booth. They also had a new 2.5 hour Lithium battery, normal battery is approx 50 min, the cost of the battery is still being worked out but it's more than my first car cost me. However, it's an option for a cave diver wanting extra burn time or ocean divers on liveaboards.

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Scuba Schools of America (SSA)

SSA brought out some interesting dive gear that they carry and had a very cool motorcycle with an underwater theme, check out the dolphin spokes on the wheels.

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DiveNames

Next I stopped by DiveNames, they make a shirt with your name embroidered on it with the red and white colors of the dive flag we all know and love. A fledgling business that was started over a camp fire, they had a line of people signing up for their products, they were pretty busy but I got them together for a quick picture.

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Deep Sea Supply

I've beta tested some of Deep Sea Supply's gear and conversed with it's owner, Tobin George, via email, for over a year now, so this was a chance to introduce myself in person. They had a lot of interesting gear, including a pink colored diving wing. I was really interested in the new materials they are using in there wings, that make them resistant to puncture.

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Halycon

I stopped by Halcyon's booth and checked out the new lights that they have coming out. The big news at the Halcyon booth was the new light they developed. It's a standard cannister light that has some improvements, like a protected light switch and an innovative sealed cannister that will not flood even if the light cord is severed.

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National Underwater Museum

I discovered a gem when I was walking the aisles and found the National Underwater Museum, it had a collection of old diving equipment, including what was described as the oldest diving kit. Of course, I took a really bad picture of it, so you can't read the text but it said it was actually a few years earlier than Cousteau's Aqualung. The gentleman running the booth said they found it, unused, in a factory in France.

After I spent my time at the show, I made the long drive back to San Diego.