TWARS (This Week at Reef Seekers) - May 25 - June 1, 2025

[Ken Kurtis]

Shirts, Trips, Scuba Show, & more
(please scroll down for details)​

Hope you're having a relaxing Memorial Day extended weekend . . .

CHAMBER DAY 2025 SHIRTS - Just a quick reminder for those of you who ordered or are expecting Chamber Day/Eve shirts. First of all, everything ships from the Chamber on Catalina so our ability to ship is governed by the number of volunteer crew Karl has at any given time, and whether or not they have to do any treatments or run drills or whatever. (And just to be clear, if you come to the Chamber bent or embolized, no one is going to say, "Be with you in a few minutes because we have to first pack up all of these shirts.") Some shirts have started shipping already. If you ordered shirts through the website (Day or Eve), you should get those soon. If you bought a Virtual Chamber Eve seat, that also came with a shirt that you should receive soon. For those on the Flying Dutchman, we only this week closed out sign-ups so now we have to create the skull montage out of all of the pirate names (each name should be on at least twice and hopefully thrice), get the design laid out and samples approved, get them printed and delivered to the Chamber, and then get them shipped out to you. Expect Dutchman shirts no later than mid-July (but hopefully earlier if we get lucky). If you have questions, you can either me here or at chamberday@aol.com.

REEF SEEKERS TRIP FOR 2026 - I'm hoping to finalize dates and prices in the next few days. To reiterate, the plan is for Yap (Manta Ray Bay) in March, Indonesia (Murex Dive Resorts) in July, and a combo land/liveaboard (one week each) in the Philippines with Atlantis Dive Resorts. I may try to add a one-week Caribbean trip somewhere in there but for the moment, we'll stick with these. One thing I am noticing as I'm being sent prices is that not only have things gone up a bit, but we're also seeing the effect of a weaker dollar that has transpired over the past few months. It seems increases will be limited to hopefully less than $500 over previous trips, but be aware that nothing's cheap anymore.

AIRFARE ISSUES - Some airfares have actually gone down but the biggest "problem" we have is that airlines generally don't have their sked available more than 11 months ahead of time. So for Yap in March, we can already see some pricing which looks to be (on United - the only option into Yap) around $1,995 Economy and $4,655 Business (fairly typical). We can't yet see prices for Indonesia (Singapore Air and then Scoot) or the Philippines (United or Philippines Air) because they're more than 11 months out. So it makes it a little hard to plan and budget but we'll work it all out.

YAP IN MARCH - We're looking at our "usual" 10-day trip there (12 days counting travel) which will get us close to 30 dives (including a Mandarinfish dive and Shark Feed dive), a 1/2-day land tour, breakfast daily, rooms in the luxurious "Ken Kurtis Wing," 3 dives/day with lunch on the boat, plus staff tip. As most of you know, this is one of my home-away-from-home destinations and I always have a great time diving there (even when it rains). Looks like this will comes in around $3,950/diver.

INDONESIA IN JULY - This is another one of my home-away-from-home places. The last two times there, we had about 18 people on each trip which meant we actually then divided into two groups of nine so the boats don't get too crowded. This is another place where the diving can be spectacular. And if you like turtles, THIS is the place. (We had a dive last year where I documented 36 over the course of a single one-hour dive.) Murex Manado has been doing some renovations and new construction so is even nicer than usual (as if that's even possible). We'll get in 25 boat dives, have options to do late-afternoon shore dives, can add a night dive if you like, will do a day-trip to Bangka Island as well as a day trip to the Lembeh Straits, all the food's included (and it's really good), as well as all the fun you can handle. Looks like this one will come in around $4,300. There's also an option to upgrade to a limited number of Premium rooms (+$300/diver) as well as to do a single-supplement (adds about $1,250).

SCUBA SHOW THIS COMING WEEKEND - I hope you have your calendar free for next Saturday &/or Sunday as this coming weekend marks the annual Scuba Show, back this year at the Long Beach Convention Center Saturday and Sunday. For those unfamiliar, this is a consumer-oriented show where pretty much the entire diving industry - not just SoCal - is under one roof. There are hundreds and hundreds of exhibitors ranging from local dive shops, to national manufacturers, travel destinations, and more. On top of that, there are numerous 45-minute seminars and discussions - some free, some you have to have a paid seminar pass for - that will be given both Saturday and Sunday. I will be giving my "Secrets of Fish ID" talk both Saturday at Noon and Sunday at 4PM. And our big talk - with Coroner Investigator Captain John Kades and Chamber Director Karl Huggins - will be Saturday at 4PM when we do the annual "Why Divers Die" panel, which is a review of fatalities in general as well as the specific fatalities that happened in 2024 in Los Angeles County. I'm obviously biased but it's extremely interesting and you can learn a lot that will help your own diving (and prevent you from being one of our case studies). This year we'll present three cases each of which as it's own unique take-home message. if you join us for this one, be aware we usually run long and break by about 5:15PM. Hopefully you can join us or we'll just see each other at some point over the two days of the show.

And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and let's go diving soon!!!

- Ken