Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Want to travel??? Upcoming 2017 vacation trips:
• September 1-6 - Great White Sharks of Guadalupe on the Nautilus Belle Amie [ SOLD OUT!!! LEAVING FRIDAY!!! ]
• November 2-12 - Fiji (SE Viti Levu 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 A 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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My oh my . . .
ECLIPSE REPORT - As many of you know, I was in Nashville for Monday's eclipse and we had great viewing. It was also nice that I got to visit some friends who live there as well, my longtime buddy John Shomby (he now runs the NASH Network) and fellow shop owner Rick Heydel. John offered to let us watch the eclipse from the downtown offices of NASH where they were going to get 1:54 of totality. But Rick said we could go out to his dad's place a bit east of Nashville, where totality would be 2:38. We chose to go east. Good thing too. because it turned out that while John & NASH has a good look at the partial phase, right before it went total, clouds moved in and obscured the view. Luckily, we didn't have that issue where we were. There were some fluffy clouds poking around but we had clear skies for most of it and during totality as well. Plus we had air-conditioning (it was REALLY hot), snacks & drinks, and bathrooms. Can't be beat. After the eclipse, we stayed in Nashville a few more days and toured the Country Music Hall of Fame, saw RCA Studio B where Elvis cut a lot of hits on Music Row, visited The Hermitage (President Andrew Jackson's home), and visited a Civil War battlefield that included a Confederate cemetary with some 1400+ markers, all of whom fought in the battle of Franklin. If you'd like to see some pix, use this link: 2017 GREAT AMERICAN ECLIPSE (from Nashville) - kenkurtis .
VIDEO TOO - I also put together a short video of totality to try to give you some sense of what it's like. It's one thing to watch it on TV. It's quite another to experience it in person. In fact, we had about 10 people watching with us who had never seen one before and afterwards they all came over and told me, "Before the eclipse, we thought you were sort of over-selling it and it couldn't possibly be all that special. But now we see what you mean." (Next big one in the U.S. is in 2024.) The video is one my YouTube channel and is a split screen. Upper left is my GoPro shooting us looking at totality. Upper right is Laurie Kasper's video camera trained on the moon/sun combo. And underneath both of those are various changing still shots from my cameras (you'll see three at a time), which depict the partial phase and totality. The video starts one minute before totality and runs in real-time through the end of totality. Also note as totality ends, how quickly it gets bright again. Here's the link: .
FOR THE PHOTOGS - I got a couple of shots I'm fairly happy with. Partial phases are fairly easy but totality is REALLY hard, because of the all the various exposure levels from the edge of the sun all the way out to the end of the corona. My longest lens was 300mm so I figured I'd crop in from that. I decided to experiment with very high ISO (3200) and very high shutter speeds (generally 1/3000-1/4000) although I occasionally switched modes which gave me lower shutter speeds (1/60-1/800). What was interesting is that when I got to the higher shutter speeds, I lost some of the faint corona, but that's when I was able to capture the solar prominences. And I already knew that any of the really great photos you've seen of totality are done through computer melding of multiple images (sometimes a hundred or more) that are shooting various aspects. Bottom line is that no single shot will ever be able to replicate it the way your eye sees it. If anyone else was shooting totality and wants to share what they did and why, I'd love to hear it.
ECLIPSE DIVE TRIP IN 2024 - The next big eclipse going through the U.S. will happen on April 8, 2024. I'd already been looking into where to go as totality runs through Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Buffalo. But Chris Menjou (who was in Oregon to experience his first eclipse) sent me a note and pointed out that the totality path actually starts much further south than the U.S. and actually goes right through Socorro. Hmmmmm. Could we do a manta/eclipse combo dive, Chris wondered? Sure, why not? We did something similar in 2012 with the eclipse in Australia. So here's the deal: If you'd be interested in a combo dive/eclipse trip to Socorro in 2024, let me know and I'll start a head count and a list. Obviously, the boats aren't booking that far in advance yet but this will let me know if we should go for a partial boat or a full one. BTW, totality will be in the range of four minutes which is wonderful. But if this is something in which you might be interested - no money required at this point and no firm commitment - let me know and we'll see what we can noodle together.
PLANKTON DURING THE ECLIPSE - It's well-known that animal behavior changes during a total eclipse because the animals think it's nighttime. Where we were in Nashville, all of a sudden during totality (and you'll hear this on the video), we realized that the cicadas/crickets were very loud. And within a minute or two after totality ended, they quieted back down as if someone had told them, "Hey, it's not nighttime!!!" Well, it turns out zooplankton suffered the same confusion and there was even a guy measuring it. The story ran the other day in the L.A. Times and in case you missed it, here's the link: Poor little zooplankton – they got totally punk'd by Monday's eclipse .
ROMANCE BLOSSOMS DURING TOTALITY - A number of our divers chased this eclipse but no one did it better than Tony Crocker and Liz O'Mara. They met during a 2010 eclipse and have been together ever since, chasing more eclipses as well as exploring the world. During this eclipse (after totality, of course), they decided to make it official and tied the knot. Congrats!!! The Weather Channel even did a story on their eclipse nuptials.
LEAVING FOR GUADALUPE FRIDAY - We depart on our fourth Guadalupe shark trip on Friday and right now, things are looking good. Calm seas (we're not affected by Hurricane Harvey) and they've been having really good shark encounters so far. We'll be there next Sunday and I will try to get TWARS out from there but it all depends on the quality of the Internet signal. But if I've got a connection, you'll be hearing from me as well as I'll post pix on the Reef Seekers and Ken Kurtis Facebook pages so you can enjoy the trip vicariously.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, and let's go diving soon. . . but after the Great White trip.
- Ken
• September 1-6 - Great White Sharks of Guadalupe on the Nautilus Belle Amie [ SOLD OUT!!! LEAVING FRIDAY!!! ]
• November 2-12 - Fiji (SE Viti Levu 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 A 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
————————————————————————————————————————————
My oh my . . .
ECLIPSE REPORT - As many of you know, I was in Nashville for Monday's eclipse and we had great viewing. It was also nice that I got to visit some friends who live there as well, my longtime buddy John Shomby (he now runs the NASH Network) and fellow shop owner Rick Heydel. John offered to let us watch the eclipse from the downtown offices of NASH where they were going to get 1:54 of totality. But Rick said we could go out to his dad's place a bit east of Nashville, where totality would be 2:38. We chose to go east. Good thing too. because it turned out that while John & NASH has a good look at the partial phase, right before it went total, clouds moved in and obscured the view. Luckily, we didn't have that issue where we were. There were some fluffy clouds poking around but we had clear skies for most of it and during totality as well. Plus we had air-conditioning (it was REALLY hot), snacks & drinks, and bathrooms. Can't be beat. After the eclipse, we stayed in Nashville a few more days and toured the Country Music Hall of Fame, saw RCA Studio B where Elvis cut a lot of hits on Music Row, visited The Hermitage (President Andrew Jackson's home), and visited a Civil War battlefield that included a Confederate cemetary with some 1400+ markers, all of whom fought in the battle of Franklin. If you'd like to see some pix, use this link: 2017 GREAT AMERICAN ECLIPSE (from Nashville) - kenkurtis .
VIDEO TOO - I also put together a short video of totality to try to give you some sense of what it's like. It's one thing to watch it on TV. It's quite another to experience it in person. In fact, we had about 10 people watching with us who had never seen one before and afterwards they all came over and told me, "Before the eclipse, we thought you were sort of over-selling it and it couldn't possibly be all that special. But now we see what you mean." (Next big one in the U.S. is in 2024.) The video is one my YouTube channel and is a split screen. Upper left is my GoPro shooting us looking at totality. Upper right is Laurie Kasper's video camera trained on the moon/sun combo. And underneath both of those are various changing still shots from my cameras (you'll see three at a time), which depict the partial phase and totality. The video starts one minute before totality and runs in real-time through the end of totality. Also note as totality ends, how quickly it gets bright again. Here's the link: .
FOR THE PHOTOGS - I got a couple of shots I'm fairly happy with. Partial phases are fairly easy but totality is REALLY hard, because of the all the various exposure levels from the edge of the sun all the way out to the end of the corona. My longest lens was 300mm so I figured I'd crop in from that. I decided to experiment with very high ISO (3200) and very high shutter speeds (generally 1/3000-1/4000) although I occasionally switched modes which gave me lower shutter speeds (1/60-1/800). What was interesting is that when I got to the higher shutter speeds, I lost some of the faint corona, but that's when I was able to capture the solar prominences. And I already knew that any of the really great photos you've seen of totality are done through computer melding of multiple images (sometimes a hundred or more) that are shooting various aspects. Bottom line is that no single shot will ever be able to replicate it the way your eye sees it. If anyone else was shooting totality and wants to share what they did and why, I'd love to hear it.
ECLIPSE DIVE TRIP IN 2024 - The next big eclipse going through the U.S. will happen on April 8, 2024. I'd already been looking into where to go as totality runs through Dallas, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Buffalo. But Chris Menjou (who was in Oregon to experience his first eclipse) sent me a note and pointed out that the totality path actually starts much further south than the U.S. and actually goes right through Socorro. Hmmmmm. Could we do a manta/eclipse combo dive, Chris wondered? Sure, why not? We did something similar in 2012 with the eclipse in Australia. So here's the deal: If you'd be interested in a combo dive/eclipse trip to Socorro in 2024, let me know and I'll start a head count and a list. Obviously, the boats aren't booking that far in advance yet but this will let me know if we should go for a partial boat or a full one. BTW, totality will be in the range of four minutes which is wonderful. But if this is something in which you might be interested - no money required at this point and no firm commitment - let me know and we'll see what we can noodle together.
PLANKTON DURING THE ECLIPSE - It's well-known that animal behavior changes during a total eclipse because the animals think it's nighttime. Where we were in Nashville, all of a sudden during totality (and you'll hear this on the video), we realized that the cicadas/crickets were very loud. And within a minute or two after totality ended, they quieted back down as if someone had told them, "Hey, it's not nighttime!!!" Well, it turns out zooplankton suffered the same confusion and there was even a guy measuring it. The story ran the other day in the L.A. Times and in case you missed it, here's the link: Poor little zooplankton – they got totally punk'd by Monday's eclipse .
ROMANCE BLOSSOMS DURING TOTALITY - A number of our divers chased this eclipse but no one did it better than Tony Crocker and Liz O'Mara. They met during a 2010 eclipse and have been together ever since, chasing more eclipses as well as exploring the world. During this eclipse (after totality, of course), they decided to make it official and tied the knot. Congrats!!! The Weather Channel even did a story on their eclipse nuptials.
LEAVING FOR GUADALUPE FRIDAY - We depart on our fourth Guadalupe shark trip on Friday and right now, things are looking good. Calm seas (we're not affected by Hurricane Harvey) and they've been having really good shark encounters so far. We'll be there next Sunday and I will try to get TWARS out from there but it all depends on the quality of the Internet signal. But if I've got a connection, you'll be hearing from me as well as I'll post pix on the Reef Seekers and Ken Kurtis Facebook pages so you can enjoy the trip vicariously.
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week, and let's go diving soon. . . but after the Great White trip.
- Ken
