Ken Kurtis
Contributor
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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Want to travel??? Upcoming 2016-2017 vacation trips:
• November 3-16 - Maldives on the Manthiri [ DIVING COMPLETED - NOW HEADING TO ISTANBUL ]
---- 2017 TRIPS ----
• 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 ]
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: www.reefseekers.com/foreign_trips.html
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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
————————————————————————————————————————————
Want to travel??? Upcoming 2016-2017 vacation trips:
• November 3-16 - Maldives on the Manthiri [ DIVING COMPLETED - NOW HEADING TO ISTANBUL ]
---- 2017 TRIPS ----
• 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 ]
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: www.reefseekers.com/foreign_trips.html
————————————————————————————————————————————
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