Exhibitors included Aqua Lung, Bottom Crawlers, ScubaPro (one of the show sponsors) and Wakatobi Dive Resort. Seminars covered topics such as great whites, diving in the Florida Keys, the Scuba Fit program, temperate diving and shooting underwater video.
The show headliner, wreck diver John Chatterton, attracted a crowd of over 100 people.
Chatterton offered two presentations: “Titanic” and “The 10 Commandments of Wreck Diving.” In August 2005, along with his partners, Chatterton put together an expedition to further explore the Titanic. He used a MIR submersible from the Russian research ship, Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, to descend to 12,500 feet. This carefully planned operation took a great deal of skill and expertise, and Chatterton offered a multimedia presentation about its execution at the dive show.
Chatterton first gained fame in the dive community with the release of Robert Kurson’s best-seller Shadow Divers. He and his dive buddy, Richie Kohler, battled treacherous currents and descended 230 feet in frigid water 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey to discover the wreck of a World War II German U-Boat.
Chatterton also cohosted 57 episodes of the History Channel’s “Deep Sea Detectives” series, as well as taking part in the recovery project in the waters below the World Financial Center in New York City across from Tower One on September 11, 2001.
Chatterton was one of the first to explore the RMS Lusitania in 1994 and, shortly thereafter, became one of the first divers to use a rebreather to explore the wreck of the HMHS Britannic near the Greek island of Kea.
In 2009, John participated in a NOVA television project in Hawaii, diving aboard the Pisces submersibles operated by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory. From these dives, in excess of 1,000 feet, came the NOVA program called “Killer Subs in Pearl Harbor.”
Chatterton is currently working with the government of the Dominican Republic, participating in a multi-faceted commercial project to locate, document and salvage colonial-era wreck sites in Dominican waters. He is also involved in another book venture with Robert Kurson.
