Shark Trust were celebrating their tenth anniversary. The black tie event was very well attended. Both Diver magazine and Dive magazine were on hand to support the Trust and Mike Caulder of Mike's Waterfront and Justin Hanning of Mares were among guests from the diving industry. James Lea, just back from working with Sam Gruber in Bimini and middle son of our Sue was also there. James has been researching Tiger and Lemon sharks. His prize winning image from the Shark Trust photography competition was on show alongside the other winners' outstanding shark shots. Richard Pierce of Shark Cornwall, the man responsible for UK cage diving was the Master of Ceremonies. After a superb meal, the fund raising began in earnest. Many individuals and companies had donated jewelry, sculptures and dive trips for the fund raising event. The success of the high octane auction for these items was incredible - over £6,000 raised in under half an hour.
Ocean Optics/Mavericks Diving had donated two of the many prizes for the Shark Trust raffle. Jenny Hazelden won our Fuji F30 digital camera and underwater housing together with an Inon UWL105 wide angle lens. We also donated an Aqua Lung gents diving watch, but soon lost track of who won it!
In total, the Shark Trust Gala raised more than £12,000. We're delighted to have been invited to attend and our involvement with Shark Trust has led to us receiving a wonderful offer to join Richard Pierce on one of his Shark Cornwall expeditions in 2008.
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