Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Socorro, Avalon, Ain't No Sunshine, and more
(please scroll down for details)
First it was COVID, then the fires, now we can barely breathe . . .
SPEAKING OF BREATHING - Fred Adler turned me on to a great site if you want to check on air quality as well as fire issues. It's a site run by the EPA and the URL is www.airnow.gov . (Note that its GOV not COM.) But you type in your ZIP and it'll give you an easy-to-read indication of the air quality where you live. There are also other links to maps giving pollution forecasts and even fire maps. The fire map one I found especially interesting because it not only shows where fires might be, but also have an overlay of the smoke patterns and it's truly astonishing to see how far this stuff goes. But definitely useful and interesting information. This is what the smoke map looked like Sunday afternoon:
WHERE DID THE SUN GO? - I was astonished, especially Friday and Saturday, at how brown/orange the sky was from the smoke. And how dark things got in the late afternoon. I went up on our roof Friday around 5:45PM - sundown's not until 7:15-ish - and took the pix below. The faintly-visible orange dot to the left of the palm tree is the sun. Yikes!!!
SOME DIVE SHOPS STOPPED PUMPING AIR OVER THE WEEKEND - In an abundance of caution, some shops stopping pumping air over the weekend and a couple of boats cancelled their Saturday trips. In theory, compressor filters should take care of the smoke and ash in the air but it never hurts to be extra-safe. To turn my favorite phrase, you never get lung disease from air you didn't breathe. And staying inside as much as practical makes sense as well. The fires are beyond horrific and the vastly spread out smoke reminds us that other people have it a lot worse than we do.
THERE WAS STILL DIVING GOING ON - Buck had a group out at the Underwater Park on Saturday and reported decent vis (40-50'), fairly warm water (high 60s at depth), and Buck's hubby Chris (they had their 6-year anniversary Sunday) says he saw five GSBs hanging out around 70 feet (deeper than Buck could go with students). John Lumb & Jan Larson were out on Sunday in the Laguna area (Montage Resort) and reported an interesting phenomena of no surf to speak of but strong surge. And usually you'd think you'd need waves to generate the surge. (I saw someone else make a similar comment on FaceBook.) John said they got oodles of octopuses and even a Harbor Seal. So good diving to be had despite the smokey air.
AVALON ON MONDAY, SEPT. 21 - As I mentioned last week, we really liked the not-a-weekend trip to Avalon so we'll do it again this coming Monday, September 21, leaving at 9AM out of San Pedro and leaving the island at 6PM. We'll have time for three dives and the $150 fee covers the boat, the taxis, tanks/fills at the park and all the fun you can handle. Because it's a Monday, the Park shouldn't be too crowded. We've already got 4 confirmed and will limit the group to 9. If you want to join us, call us at 310/652-4990 and get signed up. Deadline to do so is Friday at Noon.
SOCORRO UPDATE - We understand Isla Guadalupe is still closed but it looks like the southern Baja marine parks have now opened and we think that includes Socorro (although there's a hurricane in the area right now so I don't think you'd want to be there at the moment). In theory, the Socorro "season" starts around the beginning of November. So we are quite hopeful that our January 13-22 trip will come off without a hitch. We are also encouraged by hearing of some companies that are developing at-home COVID tests, like a home pregnancy test, that you can administer yourself. Following the lead of the NBA and the NHL, if we can confirm that everyone - passengers & crew - are negative as they step on the boat, we then have created our own little no-one-has-COVID bubble and can breathe easier in terms of COVID mitigation issues. And that's a long way of saying we have one single spot left, in the co-ed triple (Britt Evans and Rik Aceves currently are in there) if anyone wants to add this as their next dive trip. Give us a call or shoot us an e-mail for all the specifics.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, stay safe, wear your mask, wash your hands, and let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken
(please scroll down for details)
First it was COVID, then the fires, now we can barely breathe . . .
SPEAKING OF BREATHING - Fred Adler turned me on to a great site if you want to check on air quality as well as fire issues. It's a site run by the EPA and the URL is www.airnow.gov . (Note that its GOV not COM.) But you type in your ZIP and it'll give you an easy-to-read indication of the air quality where you live. There are also other links to maps giving pollution forecasts and even fire maps. The fire map one I found especially interesting because it not only shows where fires might be, but also have an overlay of the smoke patterns and it's truly astonishing to see how far this stuff goes. But definitely useful and interesting information. This is what the smoke map looked like Sunday afternoon:
WHERE DID THE SUN GO? - I was astonished, especially Friday and Saturday, at how brown/orange the sky was from the smoke. And how dark things got in the late afternoon. I went up on our roof Friday around 5:45PM - sundown's not until 7:15-ish - and took the pix below. The faintly-visible orange dot to the left of the palm tree is the sun. Yikes!!!
SOME DIVE SHOPS STOPPED PUMPING AIR OVER THE WEEKEND - In an abundance of caution, some shops stopping pumping air over the weekend and a couple of boats cancelled their Saturday trips. In theory, compressor filters should take care of the smoke and ash in the air but it never hurts to be extra-safe. To turn my favorite phrase, you never get lung disease from air you didn't breathe. And staying inside as much as practical makes sense as well. The fires are beyond horrific and the vastly spread out smoke reminds us that other people have it a lot worse than we do.
THERE WAS STILL DIVING GOING ON - Buck had a group out at the Underwater Park on Saturday and reported decent vis (40-50'), fairly warm water (high 60s at depth), and Buck's hubby Chris (they had their 6-year anniversary Sunday) says he saw five GSBs hanging out around 70 feet (deeper than Buck could go with students). John Lumb & Jan Larson were out on Sunday in the Laguna area (Montage Resort) and reported an interesting phenomena of no surf to speak of but strong surge. And usually you'd think you'd need waves to generate the surge. (I saw someone else make a similar comment on FaceBook.) John said they got oodles of octopuses and even a Harbor Seal. So good diving to be had despite the smokey air.
AVALON ON MONDAY, SEPT. 21 - As I mentioned last week, we really liked the not-a-weekend trip to Avalon so we'll do it again this coming Monday, September 21, leaving at 9AM out of San Pedro and leaving the island at 6PM. We'll have time for three dives and the $150 fee covers the boat, the taxis, tanks/fills at the park and all the fun you can handle. Because it's a Monday, the Park shouldn't be too crowded. We've already got 4 confirmed and will limit the group to 9. If you want to join us, call us at 310/652-4990 and get signed up. Deadline to do so is Friday at Noon.
SOCORRO UPDATE - We understand Isla Guadalupe is still closed but it looks like the southern Baja marine parks have now opened and we think that includes Socorro (although there's a hurricane in the area right now so I don't think you'd want to be there at the moment). In theory, the Socorro "season" starts around the beginning of November. So we are quite hopeful that our January 13-22 trip will come off without a hitch. We are also encouraged by hearing of some companies that are developing at-home COVID tests, like a home pregnancy test, that you can administer yourself. Following the lead of the NBA and the NHL, if we can confirm that everyone - passengers & crew - are negative as they step on the boat, we then have created our own little no-one-has-COVID bubble and can breathe easier in terms of COVID mitigation issues. And that's a long way of saying we have one single spot left, in the co-ed triple (Britt Evans and Rik Aceves currently are in there) if anyone wants to add this as their next dive trip. Give us a call or shoot us an e-mail for all the specifics.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, stay safe, wear your mask, wash your hands, and let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken
