Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Greetings from the land of Stone Money . . .
FIRST OF FOUR - I'm very excited to be in Yap for almost an entire month (until August 2). So this TWARS and the next three will all (hopefully - Internet here is VERY slow) come to you from Manta Ray Bay, which is where we're staying. We're now two days in to our first 13-day Yap Immersion trip and I'm going to keep this short because not only of the slowness of the Internet, but also because we're doing a dusk dock dive in about half an hour.
NICE FIRST FOUR DIVES - Although Yap is known as a reliable place in the world to see Manta Rays, our first Manta dive isn't until tomorrow morning. And we just completed a Manta ID Class which is part of our program this time round. But the dives we did were really nice. Our first dive yesterday afternoon had visibility that I think approached 100 feet, and we followed that with a really nice macro dive at Slow & Easy, which we calso came across a very coopoerative resting Hawksbill Tiurtle. Today we started down at Yap Cavenrs, where Bill Acker found us a couple of Leaf Scorpionfish, and we ended up a Buena Vista, where we had a hugh school of Barracuda join us for part of the dive.
HERE'S SOME PIX - Because of the slowness of the connection, I'm hesitant to put pictures in an e-mail but I was able to load some up to my SmugMug account. You can view them through our FaceBook page or through this link: YAP 2017 - DAILY TOP 10 PIX . Pick a day and knock yourself out. the hope is to post 10 new ones each day that I'm here, all month long.
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE FOR ME - One thing I'll really be interested in seeing is how conditions change over the 26 dive days that I'm here. I plan to dive with our first group each day, then I've got some days to myself between groups, and then I'll dive each day with the second group (same sked as the first group). So, since I'll be hitting some sites each week, it'll really be interesting for me to see how they change over time. One thing we say a lot when we're doing these trips is that sometimes you hit a good week, and sometimes you hit a bad week, but the weather and water conditions are simply things beyond our control.
WEATHER IN YAP - Water temp is the highest I think I've ever seen it here, coming in at 86F on my gauge. You're certainly not getting chilled on the days. the air is very hot and humid, so we appreciate the fact that the rooms are air-conditioned and that there's a breeze when we're out on the boat. We got an amazing torrential downpour Sunday morning from about 8:30-9:00AM and then everything was clear. But the amount of rain and the intensity was pretty spectacular. based on the forecast, we should get a little rain every now and then but nothing we can't handle, nothing that will affect our diving and besides, it IS the tropics.
SUUNTO RECALL - There's a Suunto recall on for wireless transmitters. Many thanks to a couple of you who sent me the link. In reading the recall notice, it's unclear to me exactly how many units are affected but it sounds fairly widespread and that it goes back a ways. So even if you're using an older Suunto wireless transmitter, you should check it out as you may be affected. To see if you're affected, go here: Product recall for Suunto dive accessories.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, and let's go diving . . . once I get back from Yap.
- Ken
FIRST OF FOUR - I'm very excited to be in Yap for almost an entire month (until August 2). So this TWARS and the next three will all (hopefully - Internet here is VERY slow) come to you from Manta Ray Bay, which is where we're staying. We're now two days in to our first 13-day Yap Immersion trip and I'm going to keep this short because not only of the slowness of the Internet, but also because we're doing a dusk dock dive in about half an hour.
NICE FIRST FOUR DIVES - Although Yap is known as a reliable place in the world to see Manta Rays, our first Manta dive isn't until tomorrow morning. And we just completed a Manta ID Class which is part of our program this time round. But the dives we did were really nice. Our first dive yesterday afternoon had visibility that I think approached 100 feet, and we followed that with a really nice macro dive at Slow & Easy, which we calso came across a very coopoerative resting Hawksbill Tiurtle. Today we started down at Yap Cavenrs, where Bill Acker found us a couple of Leaf Scorpionfish, and we ended up a Buena Vista, where we had a hugh school of Barracuda join us for part of the dive.
HERE'S SOME PIX - Because of the slowness of the connection, I'm hesitant to put pictures in an e-mail but I was able to load some up to my SmugMug account. You can view them through our FaceBook page or through this link: YAP 2017 - DAILY TOP 10 PIX . Pick a day and knock yourself out. the hope is to post 10 new ones each day that I'm here, all month long.
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE FOR ME - One thing I'll really be interested in seeing is how conditions change over the 26 dive days that I'm here. I plan to dive with our first group each day, then I've got some days to myself between groups, and then I'll dive each day with the second group (same sked as the first group). So, since I'll be hitting some sites each week, it'll really be interesting for me to see how they change over time. One thing we say a lot when we're doing these trips is that sometimes you hit a good week, and sometimes you hit a bad week, but the weather and water conditions are simply things beyond our control.
WEATHER IN YAP - Water temp is the highest I think I've ever seen it here, coming in at 86F on my gauge. You're certainly not getting chilled on the days. the air is very hot and humid, so we appreciate the fact that the rooms are air-conditioned and that there's a breeze when we're out on the boat. We got an amazing torrential downpour Sunday morning from about 8:30-9:00AM and then everything was clear. But the amount of rain and the intensity was pretty spectacular. based on the forecast, we should get a little rain every now and then but nothing we can't handle, nothing that will affect our diving and besides, it IS the tropics.
SUUNTO RECALL - There's a Suunto recall on for wireless transmitters. Many thanks to a couple of you who sent me the link. In reading the recall notice, it's unclear to me exactly how many units are affected but it sounds fairly widespread and that it goes back a ways. So even if you're using an older Suunto wireless transmitter, you should check it out as you may be affected. To see if you're affected, go here: Product recall for Suunto dive accessories.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, and let's go diving . . . once I get back from Yap.
- Ken
