I never get sick of Norway. This time Trondheim was the destination, the city I have been studying the preceding 5 years. I had several errands here, which I had been looking forward to a long time. The first on my list was visiting the newly approved hyperbaric chamber. The chambers are sparse in Norway, even though the country has IS basically coastline. So, I was proud and excited that we finally had one ready in my town, the only thing lacking for it to be fully operational is the medical support, which is under planning. The chamber is the Fire Department´s property, and Kjell Husby, who has coordinated the whole process of getting it approved, gave me the grand tour.

The facility is a Drager production, and it rooms 6 people in the main chamber. It was purchased from the SJØFORSVARET for the sum equivalent of 10 pence (which is so cheap it is almost disturbing). It took a long time from the purchase and until things started happening, but eventually, with generous funding from Statoil, Marintek, FalckNUTEC and Midnor – they got the chamber ready for divers with decompression sickness.

While in Trondheim I visited my university diving group, NTNUI Dykking, as they had asked me to have a presentation of my year so far. From the faces of the audience after I finished my talk, I bet there are going to be a couple more applicants for the Scholarship from Norway next year. And, the Leader of the diving group, and my diving buddy, Jon Reidar Heggdal proudly provided me with a few gifts for the two other Rolex Scholars, so Josh and Will can look forward to a treat next time I see them.

My next stop was Brussels and the HUGYCUP Awards 2010. Having done an UW videography course with Danny Van Belle earlier this year, it was only natural to participate in the competition (he is also the organizer of the HUGYCUP 2010). It was fantastic to see friends I had made during my stay in Bali again – and even better to see what they had managed to capture of the marine wildlife down there. Unfortunately, I could not put any trophies in my pocket – but it was very inspiring to see what the other videographers had produced. There are so many amazing people out there doing amazing things!

And of course, since I was scheduled to attend a course in technical diving later this Winter, I spent every free moment studying.

After spending some time in Brussels and then in Prague trying to plan the rest of my year and get some paperwork done, I went back to Norway – but this time for something very different. After 6 months of writing for the Norwegian diving magazine ”Dykking”, I went to visit their Editorial office. Hopefully to learn something about how one produce a diving magazine. Apparently, the magazine has been around since 1983, and it is the only diving magazine in Norway. We spent the first day going through how the whole editorial process works, some of the history of the magazine, and discussing diving in general till our faces turned blue. The second day was more in depth on how to form an article and how to do the layout – which was really helpful for me. It is easier do deliver good stuff to the magazines if you know what they emphasize. After my time there I not only know what to do or not to do as a journalist, but I have learnt THE most important thing. You can joke as much as you want with cheesy, stupid and offensive headlines in peoples´ articles, but NEVER EVER write it down in your editing software! It will backfire.

Since the Editor, Christian Skauge, is also a skilled UW photographer – he taught me some tips and tricks when it comes to editing. I don´t know if you have seen this picture before, but this is how it looks after I “saved” it.

All in all I had an awesome time – and I am looking forward to continue writing  more than ever!