TWARS (This Week at Reef Seekers) - November 14-21

[Ken Kurtis]

This is actually being transmitted from our van's Wi-Fi hotspot as we've landed in Istanbul and are on our way to the hotel . . .
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• November 3-16 - Maldives on the Manthiri [ DIVING COMPLETED - NOW HEADING TO ISTANBUL ]
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• March 18-25 - Bonaire
• June - Isla Mujeres (Whale Sharks)
• July 7-19 - Yap Immersion #1 (special 13-day trip featuring all that Yap has to offer) [ LIMITED TO 12 DIVERS - 5 SPOTS LEFT ]
• July 21-August 2 - Yap Immersion #2 (week #2 - same sked as above) [ LIMITED TO 12 DIVERS - 9 SPOTS LEFT ]


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In a year when Bob Dylan gets a Nobel prize and the Cubs win the World Series, why should Donald Trump being elected President come as a surprise . . .

FABULOUS MALDIVES TRIP - It was certainly nice to get away from all the political turmoil but it was especially nice to be in the Maldives again. More details in the full trip report but I hadn't been here since 2002 and to say it's grown would be an understatement. In 2002, there were two liveaboards and about 5 dive resorts. Today there are some 200 dive resorts and 70+ liveaboards. Wow!!! That being said, once we were outside of Male, it wasn't like we were inundated with divers. At some of the hotspots, like a manta cleaning station, we saw others divers. But most of the time we had dive sites to ourselves. The diving started off a little shaky because they'd been having rain for the last two weeks or so. So the viz wasn't too good although the sites were still really fishy. But once we got about three days into the trip, we had spectacular conditions with viz sometimes over 100 feet but generally in the 60-80 range. Still very nice. Water temps were constant at 84 on my gauge. And a few days, especially when we were in South Ari Atoll (which is HUUUUUGE), the water was literally glass-calm as far as the eye could see. Really nice. And the fish life is simply amazing. Most of the sites we dove had thousands of Red-Toothed Triggerfish and many also had huge schools of Blue-Lined Snapper, Glass Sweepers, and Anthias of every color in the rainbow. Really nice. If you don't have the Maldives on your bucket list, you should.

SOME PIX FOR YOU - I know I sent some with the note a week ago but here are a few more to whet your appetite:

ISTANBUL IS NEXT - We fly in a few hours overnight to Istanbul, where we'll spend three days touring the city that was the old gateway to Asia when it was known as Constantinople. I'm actually very interested in hearing what the reaction is to our election results. As most of you who know me know, I'm pretty liberal and in my wildest dreams (nightmares), I didn't think Trump would win. But what's really interesting about traveling around the world is hearing the views people have of the United States. Even today when we were walking around a market in Male (true story - not just Trump-bashing), one of the people in this farmer's market-type place asked us where we were from and when we said the United States, he just shook his head and said, "Trump. What were you thinking?" People pay attention. So, given the relationship that the US has had lately with Turkey, and given Turkey's proximity to Syria and the ISIS hot zones, I'm going to be very interested to hear if there's any reaction one way or the other to what Trump has said about dealing with NATO countries ("Make them pay what they owe") and dealing with ISIS ("Bomb the sh*t out of them"). It's a global community in which we live and the next four years will be unique to say the least. To quote the Chines proverb, "May you live in interesting times."

And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, and let's go diving soon!!!

- Ken

 

[Fedaykin]

Hello Ken,

Generally governments in Turkey had much better relations with Republicans that the Democrat governments in USA. As this is one of the worst days among the relation between USA and Turkey, I don't think Trump could make it worse than Democrats. What I will write after this is not totally my idea, it is the general view in Turkey. I agree with some and disagree with other but will write all as you asked the general opinion, not mine.

1-) USA tried to overthrow the government by using Fettullah Gulen and his terrorist organization.
2-) They failed to do it and now USA is hosting a terrorist leader who is the same as Osama Bin Laden to Turkey.
3-) USA is giving high tech weapons to YPG which is a terrorist organization and used that weapons against Turkey. Also USA is protecting them and working with them in the field.
4-) USA is supporting central Iraq government and they are supporting the Hashd al-Shaabi which is the ISIS of Shia’s. It is not a distant scenario that Turkey, Nineveh Guards ( Sunni’s living at Mosul led by old governor of Mosul before ISIS) and KDP (Northern Iraq Kurds led by Barzani) will fight against Iraq central government and their terrorist groups (Hashd al-Shaabi) after ISIS is finished. It might even start earlier because of Tal Afar. If Shia Groups makes a massacre at Tal Afar –which is nearly a certainty if they enter- Turkish Army might make air raids against them to stop their movements which might cause a Dog Fight between American and Turkish air forces resulting a huge mess which cannot be cleaned.
5-) USA stopped every kind of military weapons sales to Turkey. Even there is a problem with sales of bullets, not mentioning the high tech weapons which USA is giving to terrorist fighting against Turkey.
6-) Relations of Turkey with Russia is getting better every day and now we are exchanging intelligence at Syria. There are still problems with the Syrian government which causes problems between Russia and Turkey but it is much less than the problems between Turkey and USA. Russia believes that the shooting down of their plane is organized by America and executed by the pilots member of Gulen Terrorist Organization.
7-) We have never forgotten the “Hood Event” and will not before the revenge is taken by the same way.

So as you see Hillary Clinton and her politics at this region caused very big problems between Turkey and US that I don't think it is going to be worst than this because of Trump.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

As this is one of the worst days among the relation between USA and Turkey, I don't think Trump could make it worse than Democrats.

Thanks for taking the time to write. What I found very interesting during our three days in Istanbul, and this is according to our guide, is that post-election the Turkish government issued a travel warning for its citizens warning them not to travel to the US for a while because there were anti-Trump protests and the concern was that Turkish citizens could get caught between the protesters and the police and get shot or injured.

Now while Americans may scoff at that as a ridiculous notion, to put it into perspective, during our time in Istanbul, there had been a similar warning from the US State Department not to travel to Turkey because of the heightened possibility of a terrorist attack (State moved all family of Consulate employees out of Istanbul just before we arrived) and all I can say is that we always felt safe, saw nothing out of the ordinary, nor did we see any heightened police presence or activity (even at the airport) and it would be easy for Turks to feel that the State warning is as out of touch with reality as Americans might feel the Turkish warning is.

Always interesting to get a different perspective on things.

- Ken