Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Cleanup, Chamber Day, Turtles, and more
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Congrats to the SAG Award winners who dive . . .(please scroll down for details)
AVALON UNDERWATER CLEANUP 2025 - Saturday marked the 43rd annual Avalon Underwater Cleanup. 300 divers registered for the event (although not all of them show up), which involves a 90-minute dive window to pick up trash inside the harbor itself, the only time all year we can dive there. The weather was a little weird. When I woke up in Westwood around 6 AM, it was all sunny and bright. But right around the exit to LAX on the 405, the marine layer was in. Not very heavy but enough to cool things down and obscure the sun. It stayed that way all the way over to Catalina. But by the time we got the awards ceremony going at 1PM, it had all pretty much cleared off. But it was very strange pulling into Avalon on the Express and only the bottom part of the Casino was visible due to the fog/marine layer. However, divers reported the viz was fairly good inside the harbor - unless you got behind someone with bad kicking technique of course - and the initial reports are that 1,336 pounds of trash was brought up. On top of that, the event grossed around $25,000 overall (there are still expense like t-shirts and other event costs that will have to be deducted) and that net money will be split between the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber and the Avalon Rotary "Beautify the Park" project. The date for next year's Cleanup - since we know people will be trashing up the harbor again - is February 21.
POST-CLEANUP MINI-GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP - Once the awards ceremony was done around 3:15PM, we packed things up and headed over to Golf Gardens in the middle of town for our annual Mini-Golf Championship. Golf Gardens, for those who like mini-golf (and I really do), is a very nice layout that relies much more on your putting skill that it does on gimmicks like windmills. Our rules are one round, no warm-ups, low score wins. Although I've prevailed often in the past, that was not to be the case this year as I - like the Kansas City Chiefs - picked a bad day to be off my game. And Karl Huggins picked a good day to be one his. So Karl is our champion for the next year. He was also awarded the Golden Flipper during the Cleanup awards ceremony, sort of our version of a Lifetime Achievement Award (Karl recruits, organizes, and supervises all the kayak patrollers). I'm not sure which he'll consider to be the greater accomplishment. But here's the testament to the putting results:
11,000+ ORGANISMS CALL THE CHANNEL ISLANDS HOME - There's a new study out from Oceana that tried to determine how many different species of fish and fauna call the Channel Islands home. Turns out the number is just north of 11,000. The way they did this was by taking water samples from a bunch of different locations and then checking for all of the various DNA markers that they could find. It also seems that roughly 2,200 of them were previously unknown. So there's perhaps a lot of undiscovered life out there. You can read more about the study and the methodology here: MARINE BIODIVERSITY.
CHAMBER DAY 2025 IS LOOMING - We officially go LIVE this coming Saturday (www.chamberday.org) and you'll likely get some more info from me about Reef Seekers annual involvement during the week and in the March newsletter. But suffice it to say that we've got Chamber Day dives, the Flying Dutchman, Chamber Eve dinner at the Aquarium of the Pacific, virtual Chamber Evening, and the Chamber Challenge from which to choose. All the monies raised go to support our Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. Last year we netted a bit over $193,000. We know that with the economy and the fires and just life in general, it's a different fund-raising aspect for us this year so we're hoping we'll be able to count on you again to lend your support for the year.
THE TURTLE DANCE - It seems that captive Loggerhead sea turtles do a little dance when they're going to get fed and that has led to a better understanding of how they navigate through life. You can read more about the study that was just published and the underlying notions here: TURTLES DANCE AND NAVIGATE.
GETTING READY FOR EASTER ISLAND - Our first group leaves in a bit less than two weeks and it seems like everyone's getting excited. It also seems that they're filming a motion picture called "Wild Horses Nine" while we're there (starring Parker Posey, John Malkovich, Mark Ruffalo, and Sam Rockwell) so that may throw a little bit of a wrench into our plans are they're shooting at some of the moai sites. But we'll work around that. And it certainly doesn't diminish how exciting a trip to Easter Island (more properly known as Rapa Nui) can be. This will mark our third time there and we'll be excited to share with you what we see both underwater and above ground.
A WHALE SHARK'S BEST FRIEND - If this doesn't melt your heart, I don't know what will. It's a quick video of a dog in a dinghy and a Whale Shark getting better acquainted: TWO NEW FRIENDS.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving together in 2025!!!
- Ken
