We have been successful to recruit excellent keynote speakes: For the "Remote and inaccessible marine habitat" theme Tom Iliffe (Texas A&M) will give a presentation on sea caves and David Thomas (University of Wales) on sea ice. For the "Advances in underwater observation and experimentation" theme Branko Velimirov (Vienna) will report on the limits of SCUBA studies and Charles Fisher (Pennsylvania State University) will report on experimental work at deep sea hot vents and continental slope cold seeps. For Wednesday, August 24th, Thomas Schlacher (USSC) organized a Special Thematic Symposium on "Seamounts and other abrupt topographies" with exiting contributions featuring spectacular images. Tom Fenchel (Copenhagen University) will open a special session honoring Rupert Riedl's contributions to marine sciences.