Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Zoom Seekers, Cleanup, Titanic, & more
(please scroll down for details)
An amazing performance by Tom Brady but otherwise, a pretty boring game IMHO . . .
ZOOM SEEKERS THIS TUESDAY @ 7:30PM - Our guest speaker this week will be long-time friend Jeff Bozanic who will enlighten us about diving in Antarctica. Just the name sends shivers down the spines of most people. (Antarctica that is, not Bozanic.) Stories of heroic journeys, howling winds, bitter cold, and epic tragedies come to mind . . . but so do visions of penguins, whales, and majestic landscapes unsullied by the activities of mankind. Unknown to most, the underwater vistas are equally majestic. Under the surface swarm dense schools of krill, leopard and fur seals, colorful invertebrates, and wild and wonderful animals totally unlike those found anywhere else on the planet. Jeff has been to Antarctica a number of times and will be sharing not only what it all looks like, but also what you have to do to be able to successfully dive there. Jeff's an industry veteran, long-time NAUI Instructor (and winner of a NAUI Lifetime Achievement Award), literally wrote the book on rebreathers, and is a past recipient of the prestigious DAN Rolex Diver-of-the-Year award. Here's the link for this Zoom Seekers talk. We hope you can join us and learn something from Jeff: ZOOM SEEKERS: JEFF BOZANIC - DIVING ANTARCTICA.
QUARANTINE CLEANUP - Normally this time of the year, we invite you to meet us in Avalon to pick up trash and not only help keep the harbor clean, but also to help benefit the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber, the Catalina Conservation Divers, and the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, the three entities who split the overall monies raised from the Cleanup. COVID means that trash on the harbor bottom will have to remain for another year. But even though COVID has disrupted our lives - and this event (which we are now calling the Virtual Quarantine Cleanup) - it hasn't slowed down the work of our three primary beneficiaries nor has it slowed down their need for continued funding that this event provides. And therein lies the rub. So the task before us, and we hope you will join us, is to still raise money that can be used to further the work of the Chamber, CCD, and WIES. To do that, we're asking you to participate in the virtual version of this event for 2021. (For the record, we're not assigning a number to the Cleanup this year. Next year will be billed as the 40th annual Cleanup.) You can sign up through this link: AVALON QUARANTINE CLEANUP. (Choose Reef Seekers as your dive team when you register.) And then also make plans to join us on February 20, our regular date (always the Saturday following President's Day) as we'll have a live-stream festivities program. So you'll be able to sit back in the comfort of your own home - no need to get up early for that 6AM Express - and participate vicariously. We may even call out your name as a prize winner, you'll hear from various speakers about the problems trash in our ocean creates, and we'll invite you to join us in celebrating the achievements of some of our local divers as we give out awards that will include the Jon Hardy Award and the Golden Flipper. Since we last gathered, it's been a weird time to say the least. But just because we can't gather trash this year doesn't mean we can't gather together through the Internet, and still help out our oceans as well as the entities that help keep us safe and our waters clean.
SQUID DIVE THIS THURSDAY - Although it's on the books for this week, we may have two problems. One is that there may be a small rain system moving through Thursday evening into Friday which could muck things up. And two is that I haven't heard of any squid egg sightings yet. But if you're interested, let me know. Give us a call at 310/652-4990 or shoot me an e-mail here and we'll see what's what.
WHALE OF A CITY - About a week ago, Dana Point was named the first "Whale Heritage" site in America. (Ironically, it's a British-based firm that designated them as such.) But it's a great place to do whale-watching and is being recognized as such. You can read more about it here: DANA POINT WHALE HONOR.
WANNA GO DOWN TO SEE THE TITANIC? - In 1998, I was very fortunate to spend a few hours in the All-Hands Club on Midway Island sharing drinks with Bob Ballard, the man who discovered the Titanic. And he definitely has feelings about people using it for commercial profit or bringing pieces of it up. I share those feelings. That all being said, a company called OceanGate Expeditions is offering opportunities for people to actually participate in what's being billed as research dives to the Titanic, some 12,600 feet deep in the Atlantic, 370 miles off of Newfoundland. The catch is that, if chosen for one of the missions, you'll have to pay for your "mission specialist training" to the tune of $125,000. (There are other non-Titanic missions available too, at a much lesser price.) Although I'm not personally nuts about the crass commercialization of the wreck, it IS admittedly interesting to read the details of what they have in mind. You can do so through this link: DIVE THE TITANIC.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, wear your mask, wash your hands, and let's go diving soon.
- Ken
(please scroll down for details)
An amazing performance by Tom Brady but otherwise, a pretty boring game IMHO . . .
ZOOM SEEKERS THIS TUESDAY @ 7:30PM - Our guest speaker this week will be long-time friend Jeff Bozanic who will enlighten us about diving in Antarctica. Just the name sends shivers down the spines of most people. (Antarctica that is, not Bozanic.) Stories of heroic journeys, howling winds, bitter cold, and epic tragedies come to mind . . . but so do visions of penguins, whales, and majestic landscapes unsullied by the activities of mankind. Unknown to most, the underwater vistas are equally majestic. Under the surface swarm dense schools of krill, leopard and fur seals, colorful invertebrates, and wild and wonderful animals totally unlike those found anywhere else on the planet. Jeff has been to Antarctica a number of times and will be sharing not only what it all looks like, but also what you have to do to be able to successfully dive there. Jeff's an industry veteran, long-time NAUI Instructor (and winner of a NAUI Lifetime Achievement Award), literally wrote the book on rebreathers, and is a past recipient of the prestigious DAN Rolex Diver-of-the-Year award. Here's the link for this Zoom Seekers talk. We hope you can join us and learn something from Jeff: ZOOM SEEKERS: JEFF BOZANIC - DIVING ANTARCTICA.
QUARANTINE CLEANUP - Normally this time of the year, we invite you to meet us in Avalon to pick up trash and not only help keep the harbor clean, but also to help benefit the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber, the Catalina Conservation Divers, and the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, the three entities who split the overall monies raised from the Cleanup. COVID means that trash on the harbor bottom will have to remain for another year. But even though COVID has disrupted our lives - and this event (which we are now calling the Virtual Quarantine Cleanup) - it hasn't slowed down the work of our three primary beneficiaries nor has it slowed down their need for continued funding that this event provides. And therein lies the rub. So the task before us, and we hope you will join us, is to still raise money that can be used to further the work of the Chamber, CCD, and WIES. To do that, we're asking you to participate in the virtual version of this event for 2021. (For the record, we're not assigning a number to the Cleanup this year. Next year will be billed as the 40th annual Cleanup.) You can sign up through this link: AVALON QUARANTINE CLEANUP. (Choose Reef Seekers as your dive team when you register.) And then also make plans to join us on February 20, our regular date (always the Saturday following President's Day) as we'll have a live-stream festivities program. So you'll be able to sit back in the comfort of your own home - no need to get up early for that 6AM Express - and participate vicariously. We may even call out your name as a prize winner, you'll hear from various speakers about the problems trash in our ocean creates, and we'll invite you to join us in celebrating the achievements of some of our local divers as we give out awards that will include the Jon Hardy Award and the Golden Flipper. Since we last gathered, it's been a weird time to say the least. But just because we can't gather trash this year doesn't mean we can't gather together through the Internet, and still help out our oceans as well as the entities that help keep us safe and our waters clean.
SQUID DIVE THIS THURSDAY - Although it's on the books for this week, we may have two problems. One is that there may be a small rain system moving through Thursday evening into Friday which could muck things up. And two is that I haven't heard of any squid egg sightings yet. But if you're interested, let me know. Give us a call at 310/652-4990 or shoot me an e-mail here and we'll see what's what.
WHALE OF A CITY - About a week ago, Dana Point was named the first "Whale Heritage" site in America. (Ironically, it's a British-based firm that designated them as such.) But it's a great place to do whale-watching and is being recognized as such. You can read more about it here: DANA POINT WHALE HONOR.
WANNA GO DOWN TO SEE THE TITANIC? - In 1998, I was very fortunate to spend a few hours in the All-Hands Club on Midway Island sharing drinks with Bob Ballard, the man who discovered the Titanic. And he definitely has feelings about people using it for commercial profit or bringing pieces of it up. I share those feelings. That all being said, a company called OceanGate Expeditions is offering opportunities for people to actually participate in what's being billed as research dives to the Titanic, some 12,600 feet deep in the Atlantic, 370 miles off of Newfoundland. The catch is that, if chosen for one of the missions, you'll have to pay for your "mission specialist training" to the tune of $125,000. (There are other non-Titanic missions available too, at a much lesser price.) Although I'm not personally nuts about the crass commercialization of the wreck, it IS admittedly interesting to read the details of what they have in mind. You can do so through this link: DIVE THE TITANIC.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, wear your mask, wash your hands, and let's go diving soon.
- Ken
