Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Want to travel??? Upcoming 2017 vacation trips:
• July 21-August 2 - Yap Immersion #2 (WE JUST DID OUR LAST DIVES!!!)
• September 1-6 - Great White Sharks of Guadalupe on the Nautilus Belle Amie [ SOLD OUT!!! ]
• 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
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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
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Still singing Yap's praises . . .
GROUP 2 IS NOW DONE - We just finished our last dive of the trip an hour ago and will now shift from vacation mindset to going-home mindset. It's a been a fun 10 days with Group 2, but not without its challenges which were mainly weather-related. There's a large storm between Guam and Saipan that's been generating some wind and swell plus there's another system east of Japan which has been hooking south and causing some havoc as well. It all meant that we got a fair amount of rain for this group as well as some dive sites were not accessible due to swell and chop. (M'il Channel and Manta Ridge, where Group 1 saw that little pink Leaf Scorpionfsih being one of them). We also had to forgo the shark feed today due to rough conditions. But at least we had a modified feed (I'll explain more in the trip report) with a chum tube (they can smell it but not get at the bait) so that was pretty good. But we probably had better/more mantas with Group 2 than we did with Group 1. But I think both groups enjoyed discovering what Yap has to offer.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO GROUP EXPERIENCES - One of the things this experience underscores is how much luck can play into how "good" of a trip you get, and not just as this relates to Yap. We all know that luck plays a role when diving and critter-hunting in that if you happen to be looking out into the blue as the Whale Shark swims by you see him, and if you're looking for small critters on the reef you don't. But the luck I'm referring to is whether or not you catch a good weather break. Group 1 had one REALLY rough day but overall the weather was fairly good and we could pretty much dive just about anywhere we wanted. Group 2 didn't have a rough day like that, but we had rain almost every day - sometimes torrential downpours - due to the aforementioned storms, and that affected the diving as we couldn't dive too many places on the west side of the island. So Group 2 never got to Yap Caverns, Yap Corner, or M'il Channel. But Group 2 did do extra Goofnu Channel dives, one of which featured five mantas going in and out of the cleaning station for almost an hour. So you never know. Interestingly, because the two groups were exactly two weeks apart, the tides were almost exactly the same so, in a country where a lot of the diving and the traveling to and from dive sites is tide-dependent, that didn't factor in. So again you never know. I remember one Australia trip (2001) where we hit the perfect weather week in what's supposed to be their worst-weather month, and trips to Baja where we had to dodge hurricanes that shouldn't have been there. While we, as trip planners, do our best to go at the most opportune times, you just never know and basically, it's a roll of the weather dice.
MANY, MANY PIX - My dad once asked me why I kept taking my camera and shooting new pix on every trip. "Just use the old ones, " he once said. "No one will notice the difference." Well, I would know (hopefully you would too) and I also like the challenge of shooting underwater. So I've been doing many, many snaps of the shutter (probably 4,000 shots overall) and I've been posting the 10 better ones (IMHO) on my SmugMug page each day. You can choose a day or days and follow the action through this link: https://kenkurtis.smugmug.com/organ...2017-Dive-Trips-all/YAP-2017-DAILY-TOP-10-PIX.
NOW THE LONG SLOG HOME - They like to say here that Yap's a little difficult to get to, but worth the effort. I agree. But I'm usually not in quite so enthusiastic during the trip home. We'll leave Yap at 11PM Tuesday night (the equivalent is 8AM Tuesday morning in L.A) and, three flights and three security checks later (YAP-GUM, GUM-HNL, HNL-LAX), should land at 5AM. Give it another hour to get bags and get home and you're looking at a 22-hour journey. Like they say, a little difficult but worth the effort. We've had a blast but given that I've personally been here almost a month because of the two groups and the 4-day gap in between, I'd say that 24 days and 51 dives later, I'm ready to come home too.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, and let's go diving . . . once I get back from Yap after August 2.
- Ken
• July 21-August 2 - Yap Immersion #2 (WE JUST DID OUR LAST DIVES!!!)
• September 1-6 - Great White Sharks of Guadalupe on the Nautilus Belle Amie [ SOLD OUT!!! ]
• 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
————————————————————————————————————————————
Still singing Yap's praises . . .
GROUP 2 IS NOW DONE - We just finished our last dive of the trip an hour ago and will now shift from vacation mindset to going-home mindset. It's a been a fun 10 days with Group 2, but not without its challenges which were mainly weather-related. There's a large storm between Guam and Saipan that's been generating some wind and swell plus there's another system east of Japan which has been hooking south and causing some havoc as well. It all meant that we got a fair amount of rain for this group as well as some dive sites were not accessible due to swell and chop. (M'il Channel and Manta Ridge, where Group 1 saw that little pink Leaf Scorpionfsih being one of them). We also had to forgo the shark feed today due to rough conditions. But at least we had a modified feed (I'll explain more in the trip report) with a chum tube (they can smell it but not get at the bait) so that was pretty good. But we probably had better/more mantas with Group 2 than we did with Group 1. But I think both groups enjoyed discovering what Yap has to offer.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO GROUP EXPERIENCES - One of the things this experience underscores is how much luck can play into how "good" of a trip you get, and not just as this relates to Yap. We all know that luck plays a role when diving and critter-hunting in that if you happen to be looking out into the blue as the Whale Shark swims by you see him, and if you're looking for small critters on the reef you don't. But the luck I'm referring to is whether or not you catch a good weather break. Group 1 had one REALLY rough day but overall the weather was fairly good and we could pretty much dive just about anywhere we wanted. Group 2 didn't have a rough day like that, but we had rain almost every day - sometimes torrential downpours - due to the aforementioned storms, and that affected the diving as we couldn't dive too many places on the west side of the island. So Group 2 never got to Yap Caverns, Yap Corner, or M'il Channel. But Group 2 did do extra Goofnu Channel dives, one of which featured five mantas going in and out of the cleaning station for almost an hour. So you never know. Interestingly, because the two groups were exactly two weeks apart, the tides were almost exactly the same so, in a country where a lot of the diving and the traveling to and from dive sites is tide-dependent, that didn't factor in. So again you never know. I remember one Australia trip (2001) where we hit the perfect weather week in what's supposed to be their worst-weather month, and trips to Baja where we had to dodge hurricanes that shouldn't have been there. While we, as trip planners, do our best to go at the most opportune times, you just never know and basically, it's a roll of the weather dice.
MANY, MANY PIX - My dad once asked me why I kept taking my camera and shooting new pix on every trip. "Just use the old ones, " he once said. "No one will notice the difference." Well, I would know (hopefully you would too) and I also like the challenge of shooting underwater. So I've been doing many, many snaps of the shutter (probably 4,000 shots overall) and I've been posting the 10 better ones (IMHO) on my SmugMug page each day. You can choose a day or days and follow the action through this link: https://kenkurtis.smugmug.com/organ...2017-Dive-Trips-all/YAP-2017-DAILY-TOP-10-PIX.
NOW THE LONG SLOG HOME - They like to say here that Yap's a little difficult to get to, but worth the effort. I agree. But I'm usually not in quite so enthusiastic during the trip home. We'll leave Yap at 11PM Tuesday night (the equivalent is 8AM Tuesday morning in L.A) and, three flights and three security checks later (YAP-GUM, GUM-HNL, HNL-LAX), should land at 5AM. Give it another hour to get bags and get home and you're looking at a 22-hour journey. Like they say, a little difficult but worth the effort. We've had a blast but given that I've personally been here almost a month because of the two groups and the 4-day gap in between, I'd say that 24 days and 51 dives later, I'm ready to come home too.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, and let's go diving . . . once I get back from Yap after August 2.
- Ken
