TimG

The Dutch dive show, Duikvaker, was held in Houten on 1-2 February. The German boat show which includes diving, Boot, is massive in comparison, but Duikvaker being purely diving is, as a result, very manageable. Many of the dive companies who exhibited at Boot were at Duikvaker so a large array of equipment was there both from distributors and dealers to poke, prod, try on and lust over. I was very tempted by the heated vests from Venture Heat! PADI ran its annual Member Forum and explained that they had increased their commitment to Duikvaker and intended to continue with that. A good number of photographic equipment manufacturers, distributors and dealers attended including Sea and Sea, Seacam, Anchor Dive Lights, Onderwaterhuis and SeaLife. Sorry, still no sign of that underwater unicorn, the Inon Z-xxx If Houten, which is just south of Utrecht, is easier for you to reach than Dusseldorf, Duikvaker is worth a look for future years. More information about the show is here: https://www.duikvaker.nl/en/

The annual German "Boot" show took place on 18-26 January. I visited on 25 January to see what might be new in the dive and underwater photography world and met up with other Waterpixelers. I was also tasked with tracking down the new unicorn of the underwater photography world, the Inon Z-xxx Boot is a massive show spread over 13 exhibition halls. It wouldn't be hard to spend a few million euros there - assuming you had them in the first place. Diving was maybe one and a half a halls with displays of wetsuits (lots of weird camouflage suits - what is that all about?) and posters showing muscled combat scuba divers, fast-roping from helicopters carrying waterproofed weapons. I'm yet to see one of one of my dive trips but who knows. Quite a few rebreather stands around as well plus the usual suspects, Scubapro, Cressi, SSI, PADI. Lots of resorts: Raja Ampat, Lembeh, Egypt etc etc. And, as always, a few sellers of the critical doo-dads that we all need: clips, hooks, fancy tags etc etc. Slightly disappointingly there wasn't so much to see from an u/w photo perspective: Nauticam, Seacam, Easydive and Divevolk either had a small stand or shared one with a distributor but that was pretty much it. Nauticam had their housing for the Nikon Z6III which, I thought , surprisingly big for such a small camera body. But, no, sorry, not a sniff of an Inon Z-xxx. It was very good though to meet up with three other members, Maria, Hans and Chris. One thing I did notice which might be of interest was the growing number of dive propulsion vehicles (DPVs) including some very cool tiny ones. I'm off to the Dutch dive show next Saturday and will report back from there too.