This week was a pretty normal week in the office. But it had a few great highlights:

First, I got to write a story on the bill that’s in Congress right now about banning shark feeding in federal waters. Right now, shark feeding is illegal in certain state waters (like Florida, California and Hawaii), but charters are still able to feed sharks if they go into federal waters, which are just 3 miles offshore. Shark diving and shark cage diving is one way to get humans closer to sharks, but the way to get sharks to the area is to feed them. While there is evidence against this, some say feeding sharks teaches them to associate humans with food. I broke down the bill to explain to readers how it could affect diving in the US. You can read the story here!

In the SeaLife meeting, Sven Harms demonstrates how a strobe works.

Another highlight of the week was that Sven Harms, the vice president of marketing for SeaLife cameras, came to the office. He held a demonstrative meeting for multiple magazines in the dive, fishing and watersports groups about how each camera and setup works as well as the many lighting options and how they can fit on cameras of different brands. I had used a SeaLife camera at Blue Grotto, and it was interesting to see the other rigs that are available. In the meeting, the representative gave away SeaLife T-shirts, stickers and even raffled off a camera and accessories. This was another exciting experience that I was glad to be a part of and that gave me a look into the brands and marketing side of the magazine.

A final highlight of the week was seeing myself on the Scuba Diving Magazine Facebook page. When we went to Alexander Springs last week, Scuba Diving’s managing editor Ashley Annin and I “modeled” in a video featuring Mares full-face masks. While I wasn’t crazy about the product itself, it was fun (albeit a little awkward) to be filmed using the product. Robby Myers, the 2015 OWUSS Dive Group Intern who now works at Bonnier, edited the video and posted it online. It was funny to see myself on a Facebook page that has almost 300,000 ‘Likes’ from people all across the world, especially with such an odd-looking mask on. Needless to say, I shared that post 🙂 If you want to watch me in my 30 seconds (literally) of fame, here’s the video.