♫♫ I'm leaving on a jet plane . . . ♫♫

LEAVING FOR THE MALDIVES TUESDAY EVENING - We're gearing up for our final trip of 2025 which is really two trips in one as we're doing back-to-back trips in the Maldives diving with our good friends on the Manthiri. The boat holds 12 people and of those, eight people are doing both trips. (When you're going that far, you might as well make the most of it.) The general plan, and it's obviously weather-dependent, is to do a northern route for the first trip and perhaps a southern route for the second trip. But we could also do north/north. The advantage of staying north is that it might increase our chances of seeing some big animals, specifically mantas and maybe even some Whale Sharks. Also, the northern areas are where the annual Manta Aggregation, which we encountered in 2019, takes place. So ya never know. But I'm sure it will be wonderful.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK - I will (obviously) have my cameras with me and I hope to be able to post a Daily Top 10 each day on both the Ken Kurtis and Reef Seekers FaceBook pages. But that's all going to be dependent on how good the cell service is wherever we park each night since that's what I'll need to create an Internet hotspot. So hopefully I'll be able to share some images with you each day and you can enjoy the trip vicariously with us.

TWARS FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS - By the same token, whether or not I can get the weekly TWARS to you each Sunday night while we're gone (9/21, 9/28, & 10/5) will be dependent on the cell service. Same goes for the October newsletter which hopefully will go out on 9/30. So we shall see. But I may be on internet silence for a little while.

SPERM WHALES OFF OF SAN DIEGO - This is certainly something you don't see every day. but one of the whale watching boats down there got a good look at two Sperm whales last week and also was able to put a drone in the air to get some pretty good shots of them. This is definitely a rarity and they knew how special a find this was. CBS-8 in San Diego did a story on it and you can see the two leviathans here: SPERM WHALES!!!

MEDICAL FORMS - As many places do nowadays, this Maldives trip requires a standardized medical form to be filled out. (This is a requirement from the boat in this case, not Reef Seekers.) It's a CYA thing for the destination and something that's becoming more and more common. Most places that do this use the RSTC/DAN/UHMS form which is really more geared towards basic open water students, but which is still a good idea overall. It also underscores a point we try to make regularly which is that you should have some sort of a regular physical exam for diving. If you're a youngster, maybe that's every five years. But as you get older, the frequency should increase. For those over 65 and on Medicare, you get with Medicare an "Annual Wellness Exam" and you can likely have that expand a bit to make sure your heart and lungs and everything else is still up to snuff for diving. We still see, both nationally and locally, a significant number - anywhere from 25-40% - of diving fatalities that are caused by a medical component, most usually some sort of cardiac event that then leads to drowning. Many times, a proper medical exam might have caught the problem early and the tragedy could have been avoided. So fill out these forms honestly and do some serious self-assessment as to whether or not you're getting yourself examined by a doctor often enough. It's not only good diving advice, it's good life advice too.

ANOTHER CUTE FISH DISCOVERED - It's only 130 miles off of our California coast but you'll have to go fairly deep - 13,500 feet - to see it. But scientists have discovered three new special of snailfish, and they're surprisingly cute. They've got this adorable little smile. You can read about them and see some pix and video here: CUTE SNAILFISH.

And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and hopefully we'll be able to share our Maldives adventures and sightings with you in relatively real-time.

- Ken