"Time flies and it seems that I met Steve Warren ages ago. But, I will never forget that first encounter. At the time, having been deceived by a major Canadian housing manufacturer for almost one year, I never believed that Steve would have my housing on time. To be more exact, I never believed that there would be any housing at all. I perceived Steve's friendly and aloof style as the next con-man that is out there to get me. So when Steve called to tell me that he was ready to mail me my precious FIRST housing, I replied: "I am coming to pick it up myself. And if there is anything wrong I intend to break your fingers and I mean all of them."

Steve laughed and I took the next flight to London to meet this mysteriously friendly Mr. Warren. Steve's casual look and the phenomenal mess in his office gave me a few doubts about the seriousness of this cramped establishment called Ocean Optics. "Please follow me to my other office," said Steve, and I felt relieved thinking that what I had seen up to now was the company's warehouse. The other office turned out to be Costa Coffee where Steve occupied a table for about 2 hours explaining the functions of my housing and discussing about photography. It was magic.

A few months later I flew back to London to take my second housing. It was unnecessary but I wanted to go through the "Costa Coffee" ritual again. A long lasting friendship was born and this is one of my biggest rewards from my underwater photography adventure. We run parallel lives: Steve trying expand "Ocean Optics" beyond the boring borders of a camera-housing retailer and myself trying to move beyond mastering backscatter. These were not easy times but it was exciting. Thanks to Steve's unique personality and attitude, Optics gradually became a pool of information about techniques and a meeting point for underwater photographers. You went there to buy stuff and to learn (You went there not only to buy stuff but also to learn).

All this momentum led to Visions in the Sea, the tremendously successful FIRST Underwater Photography Conference that now runs every year. Steve did not make the natural mistake to use Visions as a narrowminded event to promote his products. Quite the contrary. Visions became a truly INTERNATIONAL forum for photography with guest speakers flying from California, Australia and, why not, Greece. Of course, in the beginning, finding speakers was not that easy. Today, nobody wants to be excluded from this event. While Steve was struggling with his visions, I was lost somewhere in Sulawesi fighting with mine, Realm of the Pygmy Seahorse, a ridiculously ambitious book project that would have failed without the constant technical assistance by Ocean Optics. Now Steve Warren is taking his team into a new exciting adventure: Mavericks. Come and join us on board. It is going to be FUN!!"