REEF SEEKERS DIVE CO.P.O. Box 634

Beverly Hills, CA 90213(310) 652-4990

www.reefseekers.come-mail: kenkurtis@aol.com

May - 2018

SEEKERRTHE

EEF

MAY 2 - IT'S ALMOST HERE . . .

A lot of people ask us why we do this. My answer is pretty simple: I’ve always had a strongbelief in the duty of community service and giving back to what provides for you. Scubadiving certainly is an intregal part of my life. Whether it’s a boat, a store, a club, amanufacturer, another organization, or an individual, those of us who work behind thescenes put a lot of time and effort into Chamber Day & Eve 2018 because we believe it’sreally important to have our Chamber available to us 24/7/365.

When a dive accident occurs, getting an injured diver to our Chamber alive means that he/she has an excellent chance of survival and recovery. Knowing this while you’reperforming first aid, administering oxygen, or doing whatever it takes is a reassuringthought.

Our Chamber is an invaluable safety net that we simply don’t want to lose. Yourparticipation helps to ensure our Chamber’s future. Please go to www.chamberday.organd support our Chamber. And there are two specific things you can do that will make abig difference in our final total.

2018 DIVING VACATIONS

July 8-20 • Yap Immersion

August 18-25 • Isla Mujeres

September • Indonesia (??)

Oct. 27 - Nov 3 • Roatan

THEFLYING DUTCHMAN

If you are one of those poor, unfor-tunate souls who can’t take aWednesday off, we have the per-fect solution—sign up for the Fly-ing Dutchman. In nautical lore,the Flying Dutchman is bad newsas it was the name of a mythicalship doomed to sail the seas for-ever and never reach port. But froma Chamber Day perspective, theDutchman is a good thing becauseit helps us raise more money forour Chamber and gets you a uniqueT-shirt.

Our Flying Dutchman is the an-swer for folks who can’t get weton May 2 but who want to say they“dove” the event. You won’t re-ally go anywhere but you’ll get allthe other benefits of Chamber Dayparticipation. An “on-board” rafflewill be conducted, just like on allthe other boats, and you’ll get a T-shirt—but yours will be unique.(And every year the Dutchmanlogo is new and different.)

Cost for the Dutchman remains at$95. This includes your T-shirt,on-board raffle ticket, and 5 Cham-ber Day raffle tickets. It’s a greatway to participate if you can’t get

away for the day. Last year, wehad 92 people “dive” the Dutch-man each year and we’re hopingthat 2018 will be even better.

THECHAMBER

CHALLENGE

Each year the SoCal diving com-munity raises extra funds for ourChamber through the ChamberChallenge. These funds are vitalto the operation of our Chamberand account for over 50% of whatwe generally raise during the en-tire event. It’s a simple concept:you make a donation and then“challenge” your friends and as-sociates to do the same. Last yearwas an incredible year, with al-

most $64,000 in Challenge dona-tions so we’ve got our work cutout for us and we still have a waysto go since right now, we’re justabove $60,000. So we can reallyuse your help to beat last year.

Although contributions of anyamount are welcome, we have atiered level of donations, as fol-lows:

Diamond – $10,000Platinum – $5,000Gold – $1,000Silver – $500Bronze – $100

All Diamond, Platinum, and Golddonors will receive special recog-nition from our Chamber for theirdonation. Contributions can comefrom individuals, clubs, stores,boats, publications, and others.Contributions can also be made insomeone’s memory, either as anindividual, or grouped together fora larger total. If the company youwork for has a matching grant pro-gram, Challenge donations usu-ally qualify.

Donations can be made eitherthrough our secure server atwww.chamberday.org or by call-ing 310-652-4990. Cash, check,and credit card are all fine.

UPCOMING LOCAL DIVESPLANNED DESTINATIONChamber Day/Eve benefit• • • Night Dive • • •Avalon U/W Park (3 dives)- NAUI NITROX -Beach dive (single tank)Avalon U/W Park (3 dives)- Fish ID -Avalon U/W Park (3 dives)Navigation dive (single tank)

DAYWed.Thu.Sat.Thu.Sat.Sat.Thu.Sat.Sat.

DATEMay 2

101924

June 230

July 12Aug. 4

11

BOAT/SITEMany boatsRedondoCatalina Express- CLASS -RedondoCatalina Express- CLASS -Catalina ExpressRedondo

PRICE$120

FREE!!!$150$25$150$25$150$25

FREE!!!

BONAIRE 2018 TRIPMINI-REPORT

Although firmly situated in theCaribbean, the week we were there,it seemed like Bonaire had be-come a suburb of Chicago, akaThe Windy City (or in this case,the Windy Island). More on that ina moment.

One realization that hit me this tripwas how the logistics of the tripshave changed since we first startedcoming here almost 30 years ago.Back then, a 5-dive day was prettytypical: 2 boat dives in the morn-ing, grab a quick lunch, and thenload up the trucks for two shoredives in the afternoon, break fordinner, and then a 9PM-ish nightdive. Rinse and repeat.

But as we age, our tolerance forthat schedule seems to wane. Now,it’s still two boat dives in the morn-ing along with some grumbling(“8:30???? Can’t we go a littlelater???”). That’s followed by aleisurely lunch, perhaps a nap, adebate about whether or not weshould drive somewhere or justenjoy the convenience of divingthe house reef at Buddy (which isactually quite good), debatingwhether or not we’ll do a duskdive around 6PM, and then goingto dinner in town where adult bev-erages can be enjoyed which –OOOOPS!!! – negates the idea ofa later night dive. I think I endedup doing 18 dives on this trip (inthe good ol’ days I’d do 25-30)and that was about the average foreveryone else as well. But that’salso the nice thing about gettingolder: You don’t feel quite as com-pelled to rack up the numbers.

One new thing they’re doing atBuddy which I think is a great ideais that the DM/guides now wear an

orange rash guard over theirwetsuit when they’re leading adive. This makes it very easy tosee where the guide is as the diveprogresses (and the group spreadsout a bit). Nice touch, especiallywhen they’re looking for specialfriends.

Speaking of diving . . . we didsome.

Even though we had mostly lovelydives and great fish and coral, theconditions were not optimal whilewe were there which was mainlydue to a persistent wind. Bonaireis known to be in the tradewindspath so you normally expect thatthere will be light wind comingout of the Northeast at around10mph. What we got was sevendays of strong wind coming out ofthe east, generally running 20mphfairly consistently with occasionalgusts up to 30mph. This may havelowered the water temps a bit (Iread 80-81º on my gauges whichwas the same as 2017 but it justfelt colder). And while we usuallyhad 60-80’ vis, we also had somespots where there was lower visand the water looked a little milky.

The wind was accompanied bycloud cover but the upside of all ofthis was that the air temp was justa bit cooler, so instead of walkingaround dripping sweat with hottertemps and less wind, it was fairlycomfortable. And the persistentwind kept any bugs at bay. Inter-

estingly on our Saturday depar-ture day, the wind died down andthe cloud cover was much less andyou could REALLY feel the dif-ference.

But the wind also made the surfacechoppy and that affected some ofthe dive sites we could visit. Itmade for an especially interestingdive at Rappel where the chop wasreally slamming the boat left andright once we tied up to the moor-ing line. We knew we needed to doa quick entry but we didn’t realizethe chop was going to be so strongthat it actually snapped the moor-ing line. All of a sudden, our boatwas free-floating towards the rockwall with divers already in thewater in between. Not good.

But our DM/captain Craig wasquick to the throttle and we avoideda crash (and we didn’t slice-and-dice any divers with the prop),Craig motioned the in-water diversto go down, re-positioned and thenlive-dropped everyone else, andonce underneath you had no in-kling of the surface chaos so thedive itself was quite nice. At theend of the dive DM Laurent (whowas the in-water DM/guide) goteveryone together, directed all tohold on to each other, Craig gotthe boat in close and threw out atag line, I got on board to helpdivers up and Craig held the boatin position while Laurent pulledoff fins and shoved finless divers

Up closewith a Tarpon

Lizardfish witha Needlefish meal

SpottedCleaner Shrimp

Squidat South Bay

Head-onPeacock Flounder

PICTURE PAGE - Bonaire(All pix by Ken Kurtis © 2018)

P.O. Box 634Beverly Hills, CA 90213

WWW.REEFSEEKERS.COM

to the swim step. It all worked outwell and kudos to the group. It alsounderscores that when conditionsget a little gnarly, it pays to listento your dive leaders. We really DOknow a thing or two about all ofthis and following our instructionscan make a difficult situation mucheasier.

The flip side of that was a wonder-ful dive we had at South Bay, whichis on Klein Bonaire. The dive wasnice enough with a teeny-tiny babySpotted Drum and a SharptailedEel, but what REALLY made itspecial were the four Squid thatwe came across at the end of thedive. And they seemed almost ascurious as us as we did about them.We spent a good ten minutes withthem (based on my photo time-stamps) and what was most in-

triguing was how they stayed information, generally in a straightline and moving all together. Verynice to observe.

Another special experience wasthe appropriately-named site calledSomethin’ Special, which is justsouth of Buddy’s near the entranceto the marina. We started off witha Hawksbill Turtle meanderingaround at 80 feet, then swam bythe garden of resident Garden Eels,had plenty of Angelfish, SpottedDrums, small Cleaner Shrimp, aPeacock Flounder, and more. Andwe ended the dive seeing aLizardfish strike a Needlefish frombehind and catch it, but not quiteall the way as the needle was stillsticking out of its mouth, and youcould see the rest of the fish bulg-ing through the belly of the

Lizardfish (photos of this are onSmugMug). We followed this guyaround for a while as he tried tocomplete his capture and wethought there were times when theNeedlefish might even emergeunscathed. For everyone (exceptthe Needlefish), this dive was truly“Somethin’ Special.”

In fact, you just can’t generally gowrong with Bonaire and BuddyDive. Even though we didn’t havean optimal week conditions-wise,we had a great time, made a num-ber of really good dives (as hope-fully you will tell from, the pic-tures), and renewed old friendshipsand made some new ones.

If you’re looking for a place that’sfairly easy to get to, then Bonairemight be the ideal place for you.