Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Want to travel??? Upcoming 2017 vacation trips:
• November 2-12 - Fiji (SE Viti Levu area near Suva) on the Fiji Aggressor [ SOLD OUT!!! ]
• March 24-31, 2018 - Bonaire (Buddy Dive)
• June 8-20 - Yap Immersion (same 10-day format we did this year)
• July 14-28 - Sulawesi, Indonesia with our friends at Murex (includes a day at Lembeh Straits)
• August 18-25 - Isla Mujeres (Whale Sharks, Cancun Underwater Museum, Cenotes)
• November TBA - Roatan at Anthony's Key
• STILL WORKING ON A COUPLE OF OTHER DATES & DESTINATIONS
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: Foreign Trips
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Upcoming local dives & classes:
• Sat., Oct. 28 - Catalina Express - Avalon Underwater Park ($150)
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
———————————————————————————————————————————
Go Dodgers (requires no further explanation) . . .
JOIN US FOR AN AVALON TRIP THIS SATURDAY - Ironically, the Yankees losing to the Astros guaranteed our Saturday Avalon trip. Why, you ask? Because I had (well, my wonderful sister acquired) tickets for all three games that should have been played at Yankee Stadium and we were going to fly to New York - but still root for the Dodgers - and attend the games. But since that is now not to be, the Avalon trip for this Saturday is a firm go. One big reason for this is the continued presence of a herd of Black Sea Bass. Debbie Karimoto counted 13 the other week, and Tina Kennedy at Catalina Scuba Luv (related story below) tells me they've seen as many as 20 all hanging out together. Wow!!! So this is something we've got to go see, and Saturday's the day to do it. It should still be warm but not overly so. We'll go over on the 9AM Catalina Express out of San Pedro (schedule just changed so that's the first one out) and leave the island around 5:30PM. Three dives and we'll get tanks at the Park. My main goal is for BSBs but we can certainly explore other things in the Park as well. (And you don't have to do all your dives with me if you want to go off on your own.) Call us at 310/652-4990 if you're interested in going.
CATALINA SCUBA LUV & CATALINA DIVERS SUPPLY HAVE MERGED - It's not an early April Fool's joke. I've known about this for a little while but wanted to make sure it was public knowledge and Tina assured me that it now is. (In fact, if you call Catalina Scuba Luv, they answer the phone "Catalina Divers Supply.") Tina & Bob will still be running the shop on Catalina Avenue for a while (as in years, not weeks or months) and the ultimate goal is to open a new consolidated dive shop within the Casino itself, which will certainly make things wonderful all the way around. But for now, the two are effectively one so, for the trip above, while in the past Tina or Bob used to drive our tanks to us in the Park, now we just walk over to the truck to pick them up. I think this will work out well all the way around.
OCTOPUS SAYS THANKS - This is a great little story I ran across the other day. Seems like some people found a stranded octopus on a beach in the Red Sea and they managed to pick him up and put him back in the water. The next day, they were walking along the same beach and this time the octopus came swimming in and hung around with them. Octopi can recognize human faces (our octopi at the Aquarium of the Pacific absolutely recognize their regular keepers) so the story has a tinge of credibility. You can read more about it here and see some pix and a video:
http://animalchannel.co/octopus-tha...re&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=undefined.
OUT WITH COCOS, IN WITH ROATAN - I had hoped to assemble a Cocos trip for next year but it seems now like the logistics simply aren't going to work out due to a variety of factors. So I think what we'll do instead is swap in a trip to Roatan. We've gone once before and while we enjoyed the trip, we didn't have stellar weather/water conditions (it pretty much poured rain most of the week) so I don't think we saw Roatan at it's best. I'd like to try again. The intended destination will be Anthony's Key, which is the same place we stayed before and which we liked a lot. I don't have pricing worked out yet but this is usually a relatively inexpensive trip (as these things go) and would be one week in November, Saturday-to-Saturday. Last time we flew United through Houston but there are also other flight options as I recall. Take a look at the pix from last time and see if this holds some interest for you and, if it does, give us a jingle so we can start nailing down specific dates:
ROATAN 2013 SLIDESHOW (100 images) - kenkurtis.
PHOTOGS DELIGHT - If you'd like to get inspired (or perhaps depressed), take a look at the winning images from the Scuba Diving Magazine's 2017 photo contest. There are some really nice images there, some taken with high-end cameras but many taken with compacts and point-and-shoots. It's also a good reminder that what it takes to make a good image is being in the right place at the right time, and really learning to "see" the image you want to get as you release the shutter. Nice stuff:
Scuba Diving Magazine's 2017 Underwater Photo Contest Winners.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and give some thought to joining us Saturday!!!
- Ken
• November 2-12 - Fiji (SE Viti Levu area near Suva) on the Fiji Aggressor [ SOLD OUT!!! ]
• March 24-31, 2018 - Bonaire (Buddy Dive)
• June 8-20 - Yap Immersion (same 10-day format we did this year)
• July 14-28 - Sulawesi, Indonesia with our friends at Murex (includes a day at Lembeh Straits)
• August 18-25 - Isla Mujeres (Whale Sharks, Cancun Underwater Museum, Cenotes)
• November TBA - Roatan at Anthony's Key
• STILL WORKING ON A COUPLE OF OTHER DATES & DESTINATIONS
GET MORE INFO ON ALL OF OUR VACATION TRIPS HERE: Foreign Trips
———————————————————————————————————————————
Upcoming local dives & classes:
• Sat., Oct. 28 - Catalina Express - Avalon Underwater Park ($150)
To sign up for any of these dives, either call us at 310/652-4990 or e-mail us at kenkurtis@aol.com
———————————————————————————————————————————
Go Dodgers (requires no further explanation) . . .
JOIN US FOR AN AVALON TRIP THIS SATURDAY - Ironically, the Yankees losing to the Astros guaranteed our Saturday Avalon trip. Why, you ask? Because I had (well, my wonderful sister acquired) tickets for all three games that should have been played at Yankee Stadium and we were going to fly to New York - but still root for the Dodgers - and attend the games. But since that is now not to be, the Avalon trip for this Saturday is a firm go. One big reason for this is the continued presence of a herd of Black Sea Bass. Debbie Karimoto counted 13 the other week, and Tina Kennedy at Catalina Scuba Luv (related story below) tells me they've seen as many as 20 all hanging out together. Wow!!! So this is something we've got to go see, and Saturday's the day to do it. It should still be warm but not overly so. We'll go over on the 9AM Catalina Express out of San Pedro (schedule just changed so that's the first one out) and leave the island around 5:30PM. Three dives and we'll get tanks at the Park. My main goal is for BSBs but we can certainly explore other things in the Park as well. (And you don't have to do all your dives with me if you want to go off on your own.) Call us at 310/652-4990 if you're interested in going.
CATALINA SCUBA LUV & CATALINA DIVERS SUPPLY HAVE MERGED - It's not an early April Fool's joke. I've known about this for a little while but wanted to make sure it was public knowledge and Tina assured me that it now is. (In fact, if you call Catalina Scuba Luv, they answer the phone "Catalina Divers Supply.") Tina & Bob will still be running the shop on Catalina Avenue for a while (as in years, not weeks or months) and the ultimate goal is to open a new consolidated dive shop within the Casino itself, which will certainly make things wonderful all the way around. But for now, the two are effectively one so, for the trip above, while in the past Tina or Bob used to drive our tanks to us in the Park, now we just walk over to the truck to pick them up. I think this will work out well all the way around.
OCTOPUS SAYS THANKS - This is a great little story I ran across the other day. Seems like some people found a stranded octopus on a beach in the Red Sea and they managed to pick him up and put him back in the water. The next day, they were walking along the same beach and this time the octopus came swimming in and hung around with them. Octopi can recognize human faces (our octopi at the Aquarium of the Pacific absolutely recognize their regular keepers) so the story has a tinge of credibility. You can read more about it here and see some pix and a video:
http://animalchannel.co/octopus-tha...re&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=undefined.
OUT WITH COCOS, IN WITH ROATAN - I had hoped to assemble a Cocos trip for next year but it seems now like the logistics simply aren't going to work out due to a variety of factors. So I think what we'll do instead is swap in a trip to Roatan. We've gone once before and while we enjoyed the trip, we didn't have stellar weather/water conditions (it pretty much poured rain most of the week) so I don't think we saw Roatan at it's best. I'd like to try again. The intended destination will be Anthony's Key, which is the same place we stayed before and which we liked a lot. I don't have pricing worked out yet but this is usually a relatively inexpensive trip (as these things go) and would be one week in November, Saturday-to-Saturday. Last time we flew United through Houston but there are also other flight options as I recall. Take a look at the pix from last time and see if this holds some interest for you and, if it does, give us a jingle so we can start nailing down specific dates:
ROATAN 2013 SLIDESHOW (100 images) - kenkurtis.
PHOTOGS DELIGHT - If you'd like to get inspired (or perhaps depressed), take a look at the winning images from the Scuba Diving Magazine's 2017 photo contest. There are some really nice images there, some taken with high-end cameras but many taken with compacts and point-and-shoots. It's also a good reminder that what it takes to make a good image is being in the right place at the right time, and really learning to "see" the image you want to get as you release the shutter. Nice stuff:
Scuba Diving Magazine's 2017 Underwater Photo Contest Winners.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and give some thought to joining us Saturday!!!
- Ken
