Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Want to travel??? Upcoming 2017 vacation trips:
• July 7-19 - Yap Immersion #1 (special 13-day trip featuring all that Yap has to offer) [ LIMITED TO 12 DIVERS - 6 SPOTS LEFT ]
• July 21-August 2 - Yap Immersion #2 (week #2 - same sked as above) [ LIMITED TO 12 DIVERS - 6 SPOTS LEFT ]
• September 1-6 - Great White Sharks of Guadalupe on the Nautilus Belle Amie [ WE'VE ONLY GOT 6 SPOTS - ONLY 1 OFFICIAL SPOT LEFT ]
• November 2-12 - Fiji (SW area near Suva) on the Fiji Aggressor [ SOLD OUT!!! ]
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: www.reefseekers.com/foreign_trips.html
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Upcoming local dives & classes:
• DIVE - Sat., 4/29 (DATE CHANGE) - Avalon UW Park ($150)
• CLASS - Wed., 4/26 - Fish ID (7PM in Westwood - $25)
• CHARITY EVENT - Wed., 5/3 - Chamber Day & Eve 2017 2017 (7AM-11PM at Catalina and in Long Beach)
• DIVE - Thu., 5/24 - Night dive at Redondo (6PM - FREE!!)
• DIVE - Sat., 6/3 - Avalon UW Park ($150)
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
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Less than a month to go until . . .
CHAMBER DAY & EVE 2017 - The date, if you didn't already know, is Wednesday, May 3. And now is the time we really start the heavy push for the event. It seems we get about 1/3 of the signups in March and 2/3 in April. There are plenty of ways you can participate. They include (1) Dive a daytime boat, (2) Dive the Flying Dutchman [to be clear, it's a FAKE boat - I had someone call the other day to find out where it leaves from], (3) Donate to the Chamber Challenge, (4) Attend Chamber Evening, (5) Buy daytime raffle prize tickets (need not be present to win), or (6) Buy Chamber Day/Eve merchandise. You can do all of these things by going to our website at www.chamberday.org and choosing the first tab which says "SIGN UP/DONATE" and then scrolling through the menu and the drop-down screens. When we tally everyone up, we usually have about 1,000 people participating, making this (we believe) the largest singe-day scuba charity event in the United States and perhaps even the world. Best of all, everything benefits our Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. So help keep the Chamber strong, have a good time, and participate in Chamber Day & Eve 2017.
DIVE & GET FIVE - Also remember that when you do a weekend dive in April on any of our 10 Chamber Day Fleet boats, at the end of the day they'll hand you five FREE daytime raffle tickets. It doesn't matter whether you're signed up to dive Chamber Day or not. EVERYONE who supports our Chamber Day Fleet boats in April, will get the bonus tickets. You can then mail them in to us, or fill them out (name & phone #) and leave them with the boat, or bring them back on Chamber Day (Wednesday, May 3) and deposit them yourself.
NO ISLA MUJERES THIS YEAR - Usually when we talk of ebb and flow, we're talking about water. But I also use the terms to refer to interest in our various trips. Last year, our most popular trip was the Isla Mujeres Whale Shark trip as we had 28 people go with us and broke them into two groups over two weeks. That was the flow. This year, for that same trip (albeit in June instead of August), we don't have enough interest to make it happen. That's the ebb. So this is the official cancellation notice for this year and I've pulled it off of our published schedule. It's still a great trip and maybe by taking a year off, we'll ramp up interest in 2018. But for 2017, we'll let the Whale Sharks have the ocean to themselves.
YAP IS STILL HAPPENING - But we've still got - and are firmly committed to - back-to-back trips to Yap this year. We call it "Yap Immersion" or "Immerse Yourself in Yap" and I think it'll really be fabulous. I love diving Yap anyhow and normally we do it as a 7-day trip. This year, each of the trips is 10 days, which means we get to add in some exploratory diving, a Manta ID course (you'll get a PADI card out of it), an island tour, a village tour, some kayaking, and a photo workshop, all of this in addition to the normal Manta/Shark/Mandarinfish/Reef/Macro diving that we normally do. (Plus you get breakfast every day.) Entice yourself with the flyer at this link: http://www.reefseekers.com/FLYERS/Yap Immersion flyer (PDF).pdf. Look at everything you get and then you'll see what a great experience this will be. We're also keeping an eye on airfares which have not budged one inch off of $2,022 (United Airlines) which has been the general going rate. I'm hoping they'll drop a few hundred bucks but you never know. Waiting on airfares can be a bit like playing Travel Roulette in that sometimes you make out better and sometimes the waiting costs you a bit more. Hard to know which is which. But regardless, this will be a great trip PLUS you'll get to see why I love so much going to Ganir for lunch each day. Give us a call at 310/652-4990 to sign up or if you have questions. We're trying to limit each week to 12 divers max but we have some space available in each of the weeks.
JASON DECAIRES TAYLOR NEW SCULPTURE WORK - Jason's the guy who created the sculptures in the Cancun Underwater Museum (among others) and he has a new work on exhibit in London called "Plasticide" (in other words, death from plastic) in collaboration with Greenpeace UK, focusing on the harm that plastics in the ocean are doing. From Jason's press release: "Plasticide illustrates a stark reality; industrial scale plastic pollution in our oceans is reaching a crises point. A traditional family picnic is interrupted by a dystopian vision of the future; a future where as currently predicted, plastic will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050. A forewarning of the potential horror caused by ineffective waste management, the sculpture is a rallying cry to consumer goods companies, plastic packaging producers, authorities, consumers and policymakers to work together urgently, to turn around the catastrophe that has already begun." You can see the picture below and here's a link to the Greenpeace UK Facebook page with a short video about it: .
DISCOVERY TV SHOW THIS WEEK - You might also be interested in a show that's airing on Discovery Channel this Thursday night called "Sacred Cod." It examines the decline of the oldest fishery in the United States and features interviews and comments from fishermen and marine biologists. I haven't seen it yet but if you're interested in the general health of the ocean and what we can learn from healthy and unhealthy fisheries and how that can impact the decisions we make regarding things like Marine Protected Areas, this might be of interest to you. It should air at 9:00PM and 11:30PM this Thursday, April 12, but double-check local Discovery Channel listings to confirm.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken
• July 7-19 - Yap Immersion #1 (special 13-day trip featuring all that Yap has to offer) [ LIMITED TO 12 DIVERS - 6 SPOTS LEFT ]
• July 21-August 2 - Yap Immersion #2 (week #2 - same sked as above) [ LIMITED TO 12 DIVERS - 6 SPOTS LEFT ]
• September 1-6 - Great White Sharks of Guadalupe on the Nautilus Belle Amie [ WE'VE ONLY GOT 6 SPOTS - ONLY 1 OFFICIAL SPOT LEFT ]
• November 2-12 - Fiji (SW area near Suva) on the Fiji Aggressor [ SOLD OUT!!! ]
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: www.reefseekers.com/foreign_trips.html
————————————————————————————————————————
Upcoming local dives & classes:
• DIVE - Sat., 4/29 (DATE CHANGE) - Avalon UW Park ($150)
• CLASS - Wed., 4/26 - Fish ID (7PM in Westwood - $25)
• CHARITY EVENT - Wed., 5/3 - Chamber Day & Eve 2017 2017 (7AM-11PM at Catalina and in Long Beach)
• DIVE - Thu., 5/24 - Night dive at Redondo (6PM - FREE!!)
• DIVE - Sat., 6/3 - Avalon UW Park ($150)
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
————————————————————————————————————————
Less than a month to go until . . .
CHAMBER DAY & EVE 2017 - The date, if you didn't already know, is Wednesday, May 3. And now is the time we really start the heavy push for the event. It seems we get about 1/3 of the signups in March and 2/3 in April. There are plenty of ways you can participate. They include (1) Dive a daytime boat, (2) Dive the Flying Dutchman [to be clear, it's a FAKE boat - I had someone call the other day to find out where it leaves from], (3) Donate to the Chamber Challenge, (4) Attend Chamber Evening, (5) Buy daytime raffle prize tickets (need not be present to win), or (6) Buy Chamber Day/Eve merchandise. You can do all of these things by going to our website at www.chamberday.org and choosing the first tab which says "SIGN UP/DONATE" and then scrolling through the menu and the drop-down screens. When we tally everyone up, we usually have about 1,000 people participating, making this (we believe) the largest singe-day scuba charity event in the United States and perhaps even the world. Best of all, everything benefits our Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. So help keep the Chamber strong, have a good time, and participate in Chamber Day & Eve 2017.
DIVE & GET FIVE - Also remember that when you do a weekend dive in April on any of our 10 Chamber Day Fleet boats, at the end of the day they'll hand you five FREE daytime raffle tickets. It doesn't matter whether you're signed up to dive Chamber Day or not. EVERYONE who supports our Chamber Day Fleet boats in April, will get the bonus tickets. You can then mail them in to us, or fill them out (name & phone #) and leave them with the boat, or bring them back on Chamber Day (Wednesday, May 3) and deposit them yourself.
NO ISLA MUJERES THIS YEAR - Usually when we talk of ebb and flow, we're talking about water. But I also use the terms to refer to interest in our various trips. Last year, our most popular trip was the Isla Mujeres Whale Shark trip as we had 28 people go with us and broke them into two groups over two weeks. That was the flow. This year, for that same trip (albeit in June instead of August), we don't have enough interest to make it happen. That's the ebb. So this is the official cancellation notice for this year and I've pulled it off of our published schedule. It's still a great trip and maybe by taking a year off, we'll ramp up interest in 2018. But for 2017, we'll let the Whale Sharks have the ocean to themselves.
YAP IS STILL HAPPENING - But we've still got - and are firmly committed to - back-to-back trips to Yap this year. We call it "Yap Immersion" or "Immerse Yourself in Yap" and I think it'll really be fabulous. I love diving Yap anyhow and normally we do it as a 7-day trip. This year, each of the trips is 10 days, which means we get to add in some exploratory diving, a Manta ID course (you'll get a PADI card out of it), an island tour, a village tour, some kayaking, and a photo workshop, all of this in addition to the normal Manta/Shark/Mandarinfish/Reef/Macro diving that we normally do. (Plus you get breakfast every day.) Entice yourself with the flyer at this link: http://www.reefseekers.com/FLYERS/Yap Immersion flyer (PDF).pdf. Look at everything you get and then you'll see what a great experience this will be. We're also keeping an eye on airfares which have not budged one inch off of $2,022 (United Airlines) which has been the general going rate. I'm hoping they'll drop a few hundred bucks but you never know. Waiting on airfares can be a bit like playing Travel Roulette in that sometimes you make out better and sometimes the waiting costs you a bit more. Hard to know which is which. But regardless, this will be a great trip PLUS you'll get to see why I love so much going to Ganir for lunch each day. Give us a call at 310/652-4990 to sign up or if you have questions. We're trying to limit each week to 12 divers max but we have some space available in each of the weeks.
JASON DECAIRES TAYLOR NEW SCULPTURE WORK - Jason's the guy who created the sculptures in the Cancun Underwater Museum (among others) and he has a new work on exhibit in London called "Plasticide" (in other words, death from plastic) in collaboration with Greenpeace UK, focusing on the harm that plastics in the ocean are doing. From Jason's press release: "Plasticide illustrates a stark reality; industrial scale plastic pollution in our oceans is reaching a crises point. A traditional family picnic is interrupted by a dystopian vision of the future; a future where as currently predicted, plastic will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050. A forewarning of the potential horror caused by ineffective waste management, the sculpture is a rallying cry to consumer goods companies, plastic packaging producers, authorities, consumers and policymakers to work together urgently, to turn around the catastrophe that has already begun." You can see the picture below and here's a link to the Greenpeace UK Facebook page with a short video about it: .
DISCOVERY TV SHOW THIS WEEK - You might also be interested in a show that's airing on Discovery Channel this Thursday night called "Sacred Cod." It examines the decline of the oldest fishery in the United States and features interviews and comments from fishermen and marine biologists. I haven't seen it yet but if you're interested in the general health of the ocean and what we can learn from healthy and unhealthy fisheries and how that can impact the decisions we make regarding things like Marine Protected Areas, this might be of interest to you. It should air at 9:00PM and 11:30PM this Thursday, April 12, but double-check local Discovery Channel listings to confirm.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken
