As frequent readers may remember I attended an important event in May, Rebreather Forum 3 in Orlando. Now it was conference time again but this time a bit closer to home, Eurotek 2012 (www) in Birmingham. Actually one of the organizers of Eurotek was no other than Rozemary Lunn who made RF3 happen. She was of course not alone but worked together with Leigh Bishop and Mark Dixon, and loads of other people who made the conference a reality and a success. This was the third Eurotek and the conference takes place once every two years. There are several parts to a happening like this and the social aspect is huge. Here you have the chance to hang out in a relaxed setting with several of the big dogs in diving until late at night/ early morning then get a few hours of sleep before its time to get up, get some breakfast and go listen to lectures by some of the same people. Its part of the game that people get quite tired but since its only a weekend you can handle it and everyone is in a good mood. The biggest problem everyone seemed to have with the lectures was that there was several times when there was more than one lecture going on at the same time that you wanted to see. I guess that’s a good thing.

Each day offered up to twenty talks on differing subjects from cave exploration to rebreathers and physiology. Some of my favorites were Evan Kovacs 3D films from caves and Simon Mitchells talk about rescue of an unconscious diver.Between talks there was plenty of time to walk around the stands of leading manufacturers. Some interesting news were the launch of a drysuit from Fourth Element and backmounted counterlungs for the inspiration rebreather from AP valves.

Saturday night was a special event with a gala dinner. The group was definitely more used to drysuits and undergarments than tuxedos and evening gowns. The evening proceeded through several delicious courses and on to the giving out of awards. To mention just a few, Amy and Martin Stanton got the innovation award for their work with TekCamp and Richard Lundgren got the award as the diver of the conference. The award that touched me the most was the one for outstanding contribution to the diving industry which was awarded to Jim Standing and his colleague Paul Strike of Fourth Element. Jim is the European coordinator for the Rolex scholarship and helps me out with all my travels. Actually one of the things mentioned especially in the motivation for the award was the support of the scholarship. So a big congratulations!

The festivities continued quite late and I barely had time to let my head connect with my pillow before it was time to get up again. Well, its nothing coffee cant cure.

After an intense but very interesting weekend I came away inspired, with new knowledge and with new contacts. Already looking forward to Eurotek 2014. Where am I now? A hint is that I have changed both timezone and climatezone.