Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Want to travel??? Upcoming 2019 vacation trips:
• Easter Island - January 5-13 (WE'RE BACK!!!)
• Yap Immersion - March 11-24 (3 CONFIRMED ALREADY - who wants to see some mantas???)
• Bonaire - Mid-May (exact dates TBA)
• Indonesia - July 6-19 (Murex in Manado - 5 going so far)
• Whale Shark congregation at Isla Mujeres - August
• Maldives - October 12-25 (CONFIRMED - ONLY 2 SPOTS LEFT)
• Sea of Cortez (Cabo Pulmo) - December 4-10 (SOLD OUT!!!)
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: Foreign Trips
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Upcoming local dives & classes:
• Thu., Jan. 17 - Redondo - Squid Dive (FREE!!)
• Wed., Jan. 23 - CLASS - Photo Workshop ($25)
• Sat., Jan. 26 - Catalina Express - Avalon Underwater Park ($150 - three dives)
• Sat., Feb. 9 - Redondo - Beach Dive (single tank - $25)
• Thu., Feb. 14 - Redondo - Squid Dive (FREE!!)
• Sat., Feb. 23 - Catalina Express - Avalon Underwater Cleanup ($150)
• Wed., Feb. 27 - CLASS - NAUI Nitrox ($75)
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
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We're back from Easter Island, where the Internet connections really stunk . . .
FABULOUS TRIP - Other than not being able to share any of that with you (REALLY difficult just to get on the Internet there and once you did, it was REALLY slooooooow - that's why there was no TWARS last week), we had a great time. This was our second visit to this magical place and we arrived back Sunday morning at 6AM. Overall, we got in 11 dives at various Easter Island sites, visited all the major archaeological sites with the mystical Moai during three half-day tours (with our fabulous guide Josie Nahoe Mulloy), and just generally enjoyed ourselves. The place has definitely changed though since we were there in 2011. Tourism has increased from 60,000 people annually to 100,000, there are more cars (we saw some mini-traffic jams) roaming around, and there was even a cruise ship that spent two days visiting. But the diving was interesting with very healthy and expansive coral reefs (all hard corals) and visibility upwards of 200 feet. As I keep saying: Not a typo. Two hundred feet. Plus we saw most of the endemic species that inhabit the waters surrounding the island. I'm working on the trip report and tweaking the pictures and hope to have those completed by the end of the week.
PICTORIAL TEASERS - In the meantime, here's a quick taste of what we saw, both above and below. 10 pix of each, so 20 shots all together:
A TASTE OF EASTER ISLAND - BELOW & ABOVE - kenkurtis
IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS AT LAX IN THE SHUTDOWN - We actually got an e-mail alert from our shut down dysfunctional government suggesting that, with the government shutdown, we might experience delays getting through Immigration & Customs upon our return and therefore might want to consider changing travel plans to allow for added time to make connections (as if that's possible at the last minute without incurring penalties). So when we approached the Immigration Hall at LAX, we weren't surprised to see a fairly long line waiting to use the automated kiosks. What we didn't expect was that Immigration people started taking small groups of us, directed us to bypass the kiosks and go straight to the officer at the window, where they took our passport then our photo then handed it back and said, "Have a nice day." Might have taken 10 seconds. My immediate thought was that the prevailing attitude was that if we're not going to get paid, don't expect us to do the job the way we used to. Cursory at best. And once we got our bags, it was pretty much the same thing going through the Customs exit. If you didn't have a form, they just waved you through. So it may be that the unintended consequence of this government shutdown, which is over the issue of border security, makes our airport borders less secure because the unpaid employees simply don't have their heart in it or are extracting a level of payback for not getting paid. Just my opinion based on what I personally experienced.
THIS IS WHY WE CARRY BACKUPS - The only real issue on our trip was when one of the computers (an Atomic Cobalt) when down. Worked perfectly on the first dive and then went blank. My guess is that it was still running in the background, but something happened that we couldn't "wake" it back up. We were able to get in touch with ace repair guru Robert Stark who got hold of Atomic for suggestions, but to no avail. Not to worry, because this is why you carry a back-up computer and a pressure gauge. Failures like this are rare, but they can happen. The back-up computer I personally use is actually called a BUD (Back Up Dive computer) by Oceanic and is stand-alone and simply clips to my BC. Retail is $200. Cheap insurance and certainly beats a trip to the chamber is terms of both time and money.
THURSDAY SQUID DIVE IS DOUBTFUL - I've got it on the sked but I don't see any way, assuming we get all the ran that's predicted, of the Squid Dive happening on Thursday evening. If conditions change, maybe, but they're predicting four days of rain and that will simply not make for good water conditions.
AVALON CLEANUP IS COMING UP - The exact date is Saturday, February 23. We will again be at the Green Pier (our usual spot for the last umpteen years) and would love to have you as part of our cleanup crew. We'll be taking a 6AM-ish boat over from the Long Beach Catalina Express terminal which gets us there in plenty of time to plop the gear down and go have breakfast. The briefing's at 9AM, diving goes from 9:30-11:30AM, and the awards ceremony starts around 1PM. Mucho fun and all for a good cause. Plus the net proceeds are split between the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber and the Wrigley Institute Scientific Diving program. Call us at 310/652-4990 to join our team of cleaners.
EASTER ISLAND ON CNN - Quite coincidentally (thanks to Laurie Kasper for forwarding this), there's a article this weekend on the CNN website that talks about Easter Island and how there's research now to indicate that one of the functions of the Moai (statues) may have been to indicate where fresh water was to be found. Or at least many of the Moai were built near fresh water sites. It just goes to point out that there's a lot we don't know about this isolated island, and why the research goes on today. Here's the link if you're interested: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/easter-island-statues-location-scli-intl/index.html .
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, hopefully the rain doesn't impact you too badly, and let's go diving . . . when this all clears up.
- Ken
• Easter Island - January 5-13 (WE'RE BACK!!!)
• Yap Immersion - March 11-24 (3 CONFIRMED ALREADY - who wants to see some mantas???)
• Bonaire - Mid-May (exact dates TBA)
• Indonesia - July 6-19 (Murex in Manado - 5 going so far)
• Whale Shark congregation at Isla Mujeres - August
• Maldives - October 12-25 (CONFIRMED - ONLY 2 SPOTS LEFT)
• Sea of Cortez (Cabo Pulmo) - December 4-10 (SOLD OUT!!!)
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: Foreign Trips
——————————————————————————————————————————
Upcoming local dives & classes:
• Thu., Jan. 17 - Redondo - Squid Dive (FREE!!)
• Wed., Jan. 23 - CLASS - Photo Workshop ($25)
• Sat., Jan. 26 - Catalina Express - Avalon Underwater Park ($150 - three dives)
• Sat., Feb. 9 - Redondo - Beach Dive (single tank - $25)
• Thu., Feb. 14 - Redondo - Squid Dive (FREE!!)
• Sat., Feb. 23 - Catalina Express - Avalon Underwater Cleanup ($150)
• Wed., Feb. 27 - CLASS - NAUI Nitrox ($75)
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
——————————————————————————————————————
We're back from Easter Island, where the Internet connections really stunk . . .
FABULOUS TRIP - Other than not being able to share any of that with you (REALLY difficult just to get on the Internet there and once you did, it was REALLY slooooooow - that's why there was no TWARS last week), we had a great time. This was our second visit to this magical place and we arrived back Sunday morning at 6AM. Overall, we got in 11 dives at various Easter Island sites, visited all the major archaeological sites with the mystical Moai during three half-day tours (with our fabulous guide Josie Nahoe Mulloy), and just generally enjoyed ourselves. The place has definitely changed though since we were there in 2011. Tourism has increased from 60,000 people annually to 100,000, there are more cars (we saw some mini-traffic jams) roaming around, and there was even a cruise ship that spent two days visiting. But the diving was interesting with very healthy and expansive coral reefs (all hard corals) and visibility upwards of 200 feet. As I keep saying: Not a typo. Two hundred feet. Plus we saw most of the endemic species that inhabit the waters surrounding the island. I'm working on the trip report and tweaking the pictures and hope to have those completed by the end of the week.
PICTORIAL TEASERS - In the meantime, here's a quick taste of what we saw, both above and below. 10 pix of each, so 20 shots all together:
A TASTE OF EASTER ISLAND - BELOW & ABOVE - kenkurtis
IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS AT LAX IN THE SHUTDOWN - We actually got an e-mail alert from our shut down dysfunctional government suggesting that, with the government shutdown, we might experience delays getting through Immigration & Customs upon our return and therefore might want to consider changing travel plans to allow for added time to make connections (as if that's possible at the last minute without incurring penalties). So when we approached the Immigration Hall at LAX, we weren't surprised to see a fairly long line waiting to use the automated kiosks. What we didn't expect was that Immigration people started taking small groups of us, directed us to bypass the kiosks and go straight to the officer at the window, where they took our passport then our photo then handed it back and said, "Have a nice day." Might have taken 10 seconds. My immediate thought was that the prevailing attitude was that if we're not going to get paid, don't expect us to do the job the way we used to. Cursory at best. And once we got our bags, it was pretty much the same thing going through the Customs exit. If you didn't have a form, they just waved you through. So it may be that the unintended consequence of this government shutdown, which is over the issue of border security, makes our airport borders less secure because the unpaid employees simply don't have their heart in it or are extracting a level of payback for not getting paid. Just my opinion based on what I personally experienced.
THIS IS WHY WE CARRY BACKUPS - The only real issue on our trip was when one of the computers (an Atomic Cobalt) when down. Worked perfectly on the first dive and then went blank. My guess is that it was still running in the background, but something happened that we couldn't "wake" it back up. We were able to get in touch with ace repair guru Robert Stark who got hold of Atomic for suggestions, but to no avail. Not to worry, because this is why you carry a back-up computer and a pressure gauge. Failures like this are rare, but they can happen. The back-up computer I personally use is actually called a BUD (Back Up Dive computer) by Oceanic and is stand-alone and simply clips to my BC. Retail is $200. Cheap insurance and certainly beats a trip to the chamber is terms of both time and money.
THURSDAY SQUID DIVE IS DOUBTFUL - I've got it on the sked but I don't see any way, assuming we get all the ran that's predicted, of the Squid Dive happening on Thursday evening. If conditions change, maybe, but they're predicting four days of rain and that will simply not make for good water conditions.
AVALON CLEANUP IS COMING UP - The exact date is Saturday, February 23. We will again be at the Green Pier (our usual spot for the last umpteen years) and would love to have you as part of our cleanup crew. We'll be taking a 6AM-ish boat over from the Long Beach Catalina Express terminal which gets us there in plenty of time to plop the gear down and go have breakfast. The briefing's at 9AM, diving goes from 9:30-11:30AM, and the awards ceremony starts around 1PM. Mucho fun and all for a good cause. Plus the net proceeds are split between the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber and the Wrigley Institute Scientific Diving program. Call us at 310/652-4990 to join our team of cleaners.
EASTER ISLAND ON CNN - Quite coincidentally (thanks to Laurie Kasper for forwarding this), there's a article this weekend on the CNN website that talks about Easter Island and how there's research now to indicate that one of the functions of the Moai (statues) may have been to indicate where fresh water was to be found. Or at least many of the Moai were built near fresh water sites. It just goes to point out that there's a lot we don't know about this isolated island, and why the research goes on today. Here's the link if you're interested: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/easter-island-statues-location-scli-intl/index.html .
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, hopefully the rain doesn't impact you too badly, and let's go diving . . . when this all clears up.
- Ken