On March 10th & 11th The Boston Sea Rovers held the 58th Annual clinic and film festival and American Underwater Products again, dominated the attention of over 3000 attendees from all over that came for the workshops, film festival, and to check out the latest in dive gear, travel, and training. This year at the 2012 show, AUP was featured at the entrance of the display floor and people were immediately drawn to the our space. It grabbed everyone’s attention, considering LavaCore was the first thing most people saw when they walked in. Realizing that LavaCore was part of so much more, divers couldn’t help but browse through the rest of the AUP product lines.
Mike Williams and Joe Stellini were able to re-introduce Dual Algorithm as now part of the AERIS line and it was amazing how many needed no explanation on the what and why. People are definitely more receptive to the idea of Dual Algorithm. It’s becoming synonymous with the Oceanic and AERIS lines of personal dive computers. Most of the focus was on AERIS getting back to its roots with dive computers with the A300 AI and the rest of the upcoming line up for the 2012 dive season. Certainly the most stylish and unique group of computers to come this year.
Hollis was definitely a big hit as usual. Hollis Gear has really stepped up the game to lead the technical aspect of diving. For the second year, the SMS 100 was a big hit. This BC was highly featured in Jill Heinerth’s discussion on Side Mount Diving. The SMS 100 was used in the demonstration and was donned in most of the images during her slideshow. There were also many questions regarding the Prism 2 Rebreather and it will be exciting to display it at next year’s Sea Rovers Show and the Upcoming Beneath The Sea Show.
This year AUP had two supporting dealers. Al Alzuoni and his team at South Shore Divers (Weymouth, MA) did an excellent job of educating and outfitting people into LavaCore garments, which is now often seen on people at the dive sites and on dive boats. Divers mentioned, on more than one occasion, that the reason they are interested in LavaCore is because while on a trip someone was raving about how well it works and comfortable it is.
Jim Sullivan and his crew at Boston Scuba (East Boston, MA) also did a great job with promoting Hollis Lights and Oceanic Dive Computers. Boston Scuba is fairly new to the city as not only a full service Oceanic, Hollis, and OceanPro dealer, but also runs a 6 pack dive boat called “Keep-Ah”. Jim’s boat is in the water all year and runs charters whenever possible in and just outside of Boston Harbor. The name is befitting considering the amount of Lobst-ah diving they do.
American Underwater Products exposure in the New England area is growing again and people are noticing our support of Northeast Diving and of the Scuba Diving industry in general. It is our intention to keep supporting not only the dive centers of the NE, but the divers as well. The Boston Sea Rovers show is a great place to reach out to new and old divers looking to expand their diving adventures. We hope to see many of these familiar faces at the dive sites and pool demos this season.
