Ken Kurtis
Contributor
And now the summer season begins . . .
PREDICTING CONDITIONS - When I was the weekend weather-guy many moons ago at KABC-TV, I was under the wing of the legendary Dr. George Fishbeck. His favorite saying was, "No man can predict the future." And by that, he meant that it actually WAS hard to predict the weather. Same thing for predicting diving conditions. We had planned a night dive for this past Thursday. But Monday & Tuesday the surf kicked up significantly. It calmed down a bit on Wednesday but the water looked green on Thursday, so we decided to cancel. However, we decided to do an impromptu day dive on Saturday and all was looking good until the surf kicked back up a bit - unexpectedly - on Friday. So we ended up passing on Saturday. I was hearing reports over the weekend that some of the areas in south Palos Verdes (south of Redondo and Vets) were decent with 15-20' viz, while others had a plankton bloom and were less than 5' and green. But as I write this today (Sunday), everyone's talking about Lake Pacific. Carrie Ewbank over at In2Deep told me she came back over from Catalina today (Sunday morning), it was flat as a pancake, and the water in Crystal Cove was, well, crystal clear. And Kim Lancaster of the Cee Ray posted that they had flat seas and stellar dive conditions out at San Clemente Island. So you never know and it can change either way fairly quickly.
WE'LL TRY AGAIN THIS COMING SATURDAY - I must confess I'm starting to feel like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but we'll try again this Saturday at Vets. This is a regular beach dive, single tank. Call me at 310/652-4990 if you're interested and hopefully we'll make this one happen.
A SPOT OPENED UP ON CABO PULMO TRIP - We've got the Nautilus Gallant LadyDecember 4-10 to dive Cabo Pulmo which will mark our return to the Sea of Cortez. The trip has been sold out since almost the day I booked it but we just had one person cancel due to a medical reason so I've suddenly got ONE spot open. I know a couple of you had asked me to let you know if a spot opened up but I failed to write down names so my apologies that you're hearing about it this way. If you're interested in filling this spot, call us at 310/652-4990. $3,350 covers you for the boat, overnight hotel, crew tip, airport xfers. Fly in on the 4th, dive starting the afternoon on the 5th and then all day 6/7/8/9, fly out on the 10th. Gonna be a good one.
A LEOPARD DOESN'T CHANGE HIS SPOTS BUT DOES A MANTA? - This is something that's intrigued me for a few months now and hopefully I can have some time to investigate this summer. As you may know, mantas are ID'd by their belly spot patterns which are unique and distinctive. But do the spots on a given manta change over time? Maybe in the same way that humans get age spots. During our Yap trip this past March, I shot this one manta and when comparing it to shots of the same manta from years past, realized that some of the marking on it had changed a little bit. The main distinctive marks were still there, but there were fainter ones that weren't in the older picture. So it got me to wondering if the manta spots evolve and they get more over time. I've got a couple of manta researcher friends around the world, so I'm going to try to look into this some more and see if they see something similar, or if this is just something unique to this particular manta, or even just the mantas in Yap. But I've got to sort through all of my old shots and see who's who from each year I've been to Yap. At least it'll give me something to do with my time over the summer.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken
PREDICTING CONDITIONS - When I was the weekend weather-guy many moons ago at KABC-TV, I was under the wing of the legendary Dr. George Fishbeck. His favorite saying was, "No man can predict the future." And by that, he meant that it actually WAS hard to predict the weather. Same thing for predicting diving conditions. We had planned a night dive for this past Thursday. But Monday & Tuesday the surf kicked up significantly. It calmed down a bit on Wednesday but the water looked green on Thursday, so we decided to cancel. However, we decided to do an impromptu day dive on Saturday and all was looking good until the surf kicked back up a bit - unexpectedly - on Friday. So we ended up passing on Saturday. I was hearing reports over the weekend that some of the areas in south Palos Verdes (south of Redondo and Vets) were decent with 15-20' viz, while others had a plankton bloom and were less than 5' and green. But as I write this today (Sunday), everyone's talking about Lake Pacific. Carrie Ewbank over at In2Deep told me she came back over from Catalina today (Sunday morning), it was flat as a pancake, and the water in Crystal Cove was, well, crystal clear. And Kim Lancaster of the Cee Ray posted that they had flat seas and stellar dive conditions out at San Clemente Island. So you never know and it can change either way fairly quickly.
WE'LL TRY AGAIN THIS COMING SATURDAY - I must confess I'm starting to feel like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, but we'll try again this Saturday at Vets. This is a regular beach dive, single tank. Call me at 310/652-4990 if you're interested and hopefully we'll make this one happen.
A SPOT OPENED UP ON CABO PULMO TRIP - We've got the Nautilus Gallant LadyDecember 4-10 to dive Cabo Pulmo which will mark our return to the Sea of Cortez. The trip has been sold out since almost the day I booked it but we just had one person cancel due to a medical reason so I've suddenly got ONE spot open. I know a couple of you had asked me to let you know if a spot opened up but I failed to write down names so my apologies that you're hearing about it this way. If you're interested in filling this spot, call us at 310/652-4990. $3,350 covers you for the boat, overnight hotel, crew tip, airport xfers. Fly in on the 4th, dive starting the afternoon on the 5th and then all day 6/7/8/9, fly out on the 10th. Gonna be a good one.
A LEOPARD DOESN'T CHANGE HIS SPOTS BUT DOES A MANTA? - This is something that's intrigued me for a few months now and hopefully I can have some time to investigate this summer. As you may know, mantas are ID'd by their belly spot patterns which are unique and distinctive. But do the spots on a given manta change over time? Maybe in the same way that humans get age spots. During our Yap trip this past March, I shot this one manta and when comparing it to shots of the same manta from years past, realized that some of the marking on it had changed a little bit. The main distinctive marks were still there, but there were fainter ones that weren't in the older picture. So it got me to wondering if the manta spots evolve and they get more over time. I've got a couple of manta researcher friends around the world, so I'm going to try to look into this some more and see if they see something similar, or if this is just something unique to this particular manta, or even just the mantas in Yap. But I've got to sort through all of my old shots and see who's who from each year I've been to Yap. At least it'll give me something to do with my time over the summer.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken
