Ken Kurtis
Contributor
——————————————————————————————————————————
Want to travel??? Upcoming 2017 vacation trips:
• July 7-19 - Yap Immersion #1 (JUST FINISHED UP WITH GROUP 1!!!)
• July 21-August 2 - Yap Immersion #2 (THEY ARRIVE AT THE END OF THE WEEK!!!)
• September 1-6 - Great White Sharks of Guadalupe on the Nautilus Belle Amie [ ONLY 1 SPOT LEFT ]
• November 2-12 - Fiji (SW area near Suva) on the Fiji Aggressor [ SOLD OUT!!! ]
• STARTING TO THINK ABOUT 2018 - WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO???
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: www.reefseekers.com/foreign_trips.html
——————————————————————————————————————————
Upcoming local dives & classes:
• WORKING ON AN AUG/SEPT/OCT SKED
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
————————————————————————————————————————
Boy did we get our butts kicked today . . .
NOTICE THAT'S "KICKED" NOT "KISSED" - A freak storm has blown through Yap and it almost got the better of us today. I was awakened at 4:45AM by the sound of rain (of course, this was when I'd put some stuff out on my balcony to dry overnight) and it continued into the morning along with wind. Normally, when you're in the tropics you expect some occasional rain squalls to blow through, usually in 15-30 minutes. Not today. We decided to leave the dock anyhow and see how things were in a driving rain, strong winds, and 3-5' seas outside the channel. MRB owner Bill Acker said that we'd be OK once we turned the corner at the entrance to channel and didn't add, "As long as we don't capsize in doing so." But it was a wild ride to say the least and kudos to boat captain Willy Small for ably getting us through. And once we rounded the south end of Yap (which took almost an hour - normally it's 20 minutes), we were in the lee of everything and all was good. The dives were actually quite nice and the water was a lot warmer than the rain and wind. This was our only bad weather day of the nine days we've been here so far, so I guess that's not too shabby.
AND WE ENDED WITH THIS - I always try to make the last dive of the trip the shark feed and we did that today and were not disappointed as you can see. I have no idea how many sharks there were overall (but let's just say "a lot"), a mixture of Blacktips and Gray Reef. Nice dive and really interesting to watch how they hit the bait and see the pecking order as well as the smaller non-shark fish hanging around the outskirts for crumbs. This is what it looks like sitting about 10 feet away from the baitball:
GOOD TRIP OVERALL - We had some good manta encounters but only saw three mantas total, although some of that could have been due to the approaching storm. We had an active Mandarinfish dive with lots of scampering around but no mating. And we enjoyed a number of good reef dives. Water temps were higher than I usually encounter here, running 84-88F and mostly staying at 86. Visibility was many times over 100 feet although some of the dives were 40 feet or so. Our first two manta dives at Goofnu had the cleanest bluest water I've ever seen there with vis certainly approaching if not exceeding 100 feet. And then a couple of days later at the same spot, the water was greenish and the vis was 30-40 feet. Go figure. But our first Yap Immersion seems to have been a hit with our divers as we got in a little manta education, did a number of photo mini-workshops, threw in some fish ID, and did a half-day land tour to get some more of the flavor of Yap. Our first group leaves tomorrow evening and then I have four days here by myself, with our second group arriving late Saturday night to start diving Sunday afternoon.
HAVE YOU BEEN FOLLOWING THE PIX? - I've been posting at least 10 pictures each day of the trip on my SmugMug page with links from both the Reef Seekers and Ken Kurtis Facebook pages. I will continue to post the "Yap Daily Top 10" each day I'm here and if you'd like to see what's been posted or follow what will be posted, here's the general link. Just click on any given gallery/day for those pictures: YAP 2017 - DAILY TOP 10 PIX.
GOTTA HAVE THIS ONE - Yap is famous as the Land of Stone Money (Google it if you're not familiar with the story) and I generally have a requisite Ken-with-stone-money shot each trip so here it is:
SAD NEWS OUT OF L.A. - Word got to me that there was a diving fatality over the weekend on the UB88 which is a very deep wreck (close to 200'). I don't have any real particulars so I don't want to speculate but things like this are always a reminder that every time we go in the water, whether it's shallow or deep, whether it's for a few minutes or for a long time, we are in an alien environment that can claim our life if something goes wrong and we are not ready or able to respond to it. Don't ever lose sight of that and when that little voice in your head says, "Maybe I shouldn't do this dive," that's the time to sit one out.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, and let's go diving . . . once I get back from Yap.
- Ken
Want to travel??? Upcoming 2017 vacation trips:
• July 7-19 - Yap Immersion #1 (JUST FINISHED UP WITH GROUP 1!!!)
• July 21-August 2 - Yap Immersion #2 (THEY ARRIVE AT THE END OF THE WEEK!!!)
• September 1-6 - Great White Sharks of Guadalupe on the Nautilus Belle Amie [ ONLY 1 SPOT LEFT ]
• November 2-12 - Fiji (SW area near Suva) on the Fiji Aggressor [ SOLD OUT!!! ]
• STARTING TO THINK ABOUT 2018 - WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO???
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: www.reefseekers.com/foreign_trips.html
——————————————————————————————————————————
Upcoming local dives & classes:
• WORKING ON AN AUG/SEPT/OCT SKED
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
————————————————————————————————————————
Boy did we get our butts kicked today . . .
NOTICE THAT'S "KICKED" NOT "KISSED" - A freak storm has blown through Yap and it almost got the better of us today. I was awakened at 4:45AM by the sound of rain (of course, this was when I'd put some stuff out on my balcony to dry overnight) and it continued into the morning along with wind. Normally, when you're in the tropics you expect some occasional rain squalls to blow through, usually in 15-30 minutes. Not today. We decided to leave the dock anyhow and see how things were in a driving rain, strong winds, and 3-5' seas outside the channel. MRB owner Bill Acker said that we'd be OK once we turned the corner at the entrance to channel and didn't add, "As long as we don't capsize in doing so." But it was a wild ride to say the least and kudos to boat captain Willy Small for ably getting us through. And once we rounded the south end of Yap (which took almost an hour - normally it's 20 minutes), we were in the lee of everything and all was good. The dives were actually quite nice and the water was a lot warmer than the rain and wind. This was our only bad weather day of the nine days we've been here so far, so I guess that's not too shabby.
AND WE ENDED WITH THIS - I always try to make the last dive of the trip the shark feed and we did that today and were not disappointed as you can see. I have no idea how many sharks there were overall (but let's just say "a lot"), a mixture of Blacktips and Gray Reef. Nice dive and really interesting to watch how they hit the bait and see the pecking order as well as the smaller non-shark fish hanging around the outskirts for crumbs. This is what it looks like sitting about 10 feet away from the baitball:
GOOD TRIP OVERALL - We had some good manta encounters but only saw three mantas total, although some of that could have been due to the approaching storm. We had an active Mandarinfish dive with lots of scampering around but no mating. And we enjoyed a number of good reef dives. Water temps were higher than I usually encounter here, running 84-88F and mostly staying at 86. Visibility was many times over 100 feet although some of the dives were 40 feet or so. Our first two manta dives at Goofnu had the cleanest bluest water I've ever seen there with vis certainly approaching if not exceeding 100 feet. And then a couple of days later at the same spot, the water was greenish and the vis was 30-40 feet. Go figure. But our first Yap Immersion seems to have been a hit with our divers as we got in a little manta education, did a number of photo mini-workshops, threw in some fish ID, and did a half-day land tour to get some more of the flavor of Yap. Our first group leaves tomorrow evening and then I have four days here by myself, with our second group arriving late Saturday night to start diving Sunday afternoon.
HAVE YOU BEEN FOLLOWING THE PIX? - I've been posting at least 10 pictures each day of the trip on my SmugMug page with links from both the Reef Seekers and Ken Kurtis Facebook pages. I will continue to post the "Yap Daily Top 10" each day I'm here and if you'd like to see what's been posted or follow what will be posted, here's the general link. Just click on any given gallery/day for those pictures: YAP 2017 - DAILY TOP 10 PIX.
GOTTA HAVE THIS ONE - Yap is famous as the Land of Stone Money (Google it if you're not familiar with the story) and I generally have a requisite Ken-with-stone-money shot each trip so here it is:
SAD NEWS OUT OF L.A. - Word got to me that there was a diving fatality over the weekend on the UB88 which is a very deep wreck (close to 200'). I don't have any real particulars so I don't want to speculate but things like this are always a reminder that every time we go in the water, whether it's shallow or deep, whether it's for a few minutes or for a long time, we are in an alien environment that can claim our life if something goes wrong and we are not ready or able to respond to it. Don't ever lose sight of that and when that little voice in your head says, "Maybe I shouldn't do this dive," that's the time to sit one out.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, and let's go diving . . . once I get back from Yap.
- Ken
