Welcome to the May Northeast/Midwest edition! We are excited to bring you this month’s content, and have some great dive stories for you. Diving is a sport like no other!
I was talking to my friend last week who isn’t a diver, and he was expressing confusion at how you could call diving a sport. To him, sport implied competition of some sort. Team A against team B. I asked him if he ever watched the summer Olympics and if he was looking forward to the 2012 London games ahead of us. Of course his response was positive. He indicated an interest in weightlifting, which made me smile. Weightlifting isn’t exactly a sport according to the team A vs. team B mentality. It’s about pushing yourself to be better. Improve your scores, increase your lifting capacity, and most of all be able to lift again after pushing yourself.
Diving, I told him, is similar. We study, research, and carefully prepare the way all athletes need to. We lift weights (dive gear is NOT light), swim laps, and have to be on our game to do what we do. Granted our finish line is differently defined: hiking to the far reaches of some far off island to see a once in a lifetime dive spot; swapping dive stories with your dive club; or just getting in the water to scratch the itch.
Diving isn’t a sport where we compete against each other; diving is a sport where we are all on the same team. (Probably why you don’t really see scuba diving in the summer Olympics program.) Diving is a community. We are all part of the team known as divers whether you are a recreational, warm water only diver or a technical, hard hat commercial diver, we have something in common.
My friend changed his mind in the end, especially after I showed him the gear I haul to dive sites. I can’t wait to get him in the water soon, and convert another new dive buddy.
I feel like a proud papa knowing this month marks our Fifth Northwest Dive & Travel Expo in Washington. But it is next month’s inaugural Northern California Dive & Travel Expo I’m more excited about. When I announced to my staff we were starting a second Expo, they jumped on board and worked to make it happen, telling me I was crazy the entire time. Looking back, I was a little insane, but it was just the right amount of insanity. The west coast deserves its own group of Dive Expos. I look forward to these weekends. It’s a party. The work in planning the event, and the work to make it happen, is worth it when I get to spend those three days partying with my dive buddies.
Welcome to the April edition of Northeast and Midwest Dive News! I’ve spent the last few months in airports doing the tradeshow circuit, and I’m definitely “springing forward” to the next part of the dive season - the local manufacturer demo and test dives. 
Master diver Mike Hughes takes you on a whirl wind tour of the inner sanctum of Inner Puget Sound. 
Often called the “Sunrise Side” because it is located on the east shoreline of Michigan, Alpena calls to divers from out of the past.
When you think of diving for tropical fish, you probably don’t think of Rhode Island...especially in late September.
Come visit Isla de Guadalupe with writer Bruce Watkins and see the best place to observe and photograph these fascinating animals.
Meet the newest member of the Dive News Network, and no we aren't talking about a person!
For over 15 years Ernie Arellano has been in the forefront of dive industry innovations for other companies but now Arellano is striking out on his own. 
