Baltictech 2017 Diving Conference

As large gatherings go, they don’t get much bigger than Baltictech. Held every two years in the port city of Gdynia on Poland’s Baltic coast, Baltictech 2017 took place over the weekend of the 25 – 26th November. If you’ve ever attended the Eurotek Advanced Diving Conference that used to be held here in the UK every other year (the last Eurotek took place in 2018, sadly), you’ll already have a pretty good idea of what Baltictech is all about.

Like it's UK counterpart Eurotek, the event brings together some of the world’s top diving explorers and leading academics to deliver a packed schedule of presentations to an audience of divers from across Europe and beyond. Baltictech and Eurotek conveniently run on alternate years to avoid any unfortunate clashing of dates so every year brings an opportunity to attend one or the other.

Getting to Baltictech is a lot easier than you might imagine. With flights to nearby Gdansk operating from most regional airports, it took no more than two hours from departure to find myself stepping foot on Polish soil. Gdynia is a refreshingly pleasant place to spend a weekend with plenty to offer visiting tourists and, yes, even a ‘plummet’ of technical divers (another potential candidate?). No visit is complete without a stroll along Gdynia’s southern pier which is home to two unique floating museums - the WWII destroyer ORP Błyskawica and the equally impressive tall ship Dar Pomorza.

Decennial event

This latest Baltictech marks ten years since the very first event opened its doors in 2007. A lot has changed since then – whilst the original Baltictech attracted just 170 attendees and 7 speakers, the 2017 event welcomed over 750 attendees to enjoy presentations delivered by a world-class line up of 32 speakers. The venue has changed too – the event is now hosted in the thoroughly modern and spacious conference centre within the Pomeranian Science and Technology Park in Gdynia.

Like Eurotek, the talks at Baltictech are divided between three conference rooms – the amphitheatre-like main hall on the ground floor and two smaller conference rooms – halls A and B – on the upper floor. Over the course of the conference weekend, attendees got to choose from a schedule of talks covering a broad range of tech-related subjects from wreck and cave exploration to new technology, environmental issues and, of course, physiology and decompression theory.

The British invasion

Tech explorers from the UK and Ireland were well represented at Baltictech. Irish wreck explorer Barry McGill wowed the audience with a superb talk all about the world-class diving off the coast of Ireland. Judging by the looks of awe from the audience, it’s a fair bet that more than a few Polish divers will be heading to Malin Head in the foreseeable future.

Brit deco guru Mark Powell threw a curve ball to the audience with his talk entitled ‘Why training doesn’t work’ which challenged accepted training practices. Are instructors failing to get the right message across or are students failing to retain important lessons? Either way, this thought-provoking talk gave the audience plenty to think about. Other Brits flying the flag for UK exploration included Leigh Bishop, Kevin Gurr and Phil Short.

Academic fix

Those looking for an academic fix didn’t need to look too far with charismatic diving doc Professor Simon Mitchell took to the main stage for two of the keynote talks of the conference. Full of his signature Kiwi wit and humorous anecdotes, Mitchell delivered two superb talks to a packed house – the first all about carbon dioxide and rebreathers and the second covered the often overlooked subject of temperature management and the risk of decompression sickness.

Handled by anyone else, you’d expect such science-heavy talks to be dry but Mitchell consistently demonstrates an enviable talent for keeping his audience engaged and entertained whilst effortlessly communicating complex subjects with clarity and ease. Judging by the reception to both talks, Mitchell's reputation as one of the most knowledgeable and entertaining speakers on the tech conference circuit is well deserved.

Dive computer buyers were spoilt for choice too with Shearwater, Suunto and Ratio Computers all showing off their latest models. Both Shearwater and Ratio debuted some interesting adaptations of rebreather technology to open circuit. Shearwater’s new open circuit variant of their popular NERD 2 ‘near eye remote display’ computer mounts on your primary regulator hose and displays essential dive information on a small circular screen in front of eyes.

Ratio’s new Air Transmitter proved to be an interesting development too. This clever little gadget connects to an HP port on your regulator first stage and uses a trailing lead to control a rebreather-like HUD featuring a single, multi-colour LED. With the HUD mounted on your primary second stage hose, the small LED changes colour to indicate how much gas you have – green means more than 100 bar, orange means 100 bar or less and red means less than 50 bar.

Baltictech delivers

The organisers of Baltictech promised that this anniversary event was going to be special and they certainly delivered. Ambitious, vibrant and packed with world-class speakers, Baltictech 2017 was the best yet. For UK divers, a visit to Baltictech offers a unique opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in dive exploration and research with the additional benefit of a fun weekend in an accessible and welcoming European city.

Baltictech really hits the perfect balance of serious content mixed with serious enjoyment – whatever aspect of technical diving excites you, it’s an event not to be missed. Count me in for Baltictech 2019!