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THIS WEEK AT REEF SEEKERS DIVE CO. - April
1- 6
(Please scroll down a bit for all the info, text, pictures, & links.)
NEW ---->
EASTER ISLAND -
MARCH, 2025 TRIP REPORT
NEW ---->
EASTER ISLAND
- MARCH, 2025
PIX
& SMUGMUG SLIDESHOW LINK
NEW ---->
APRIL
1,
2025 NEWSLETTER (4 PAGES)
2025 FOREIGN
TRIP SCHEDULE
2025 LOCAL DIVES & CLASS SCHEDULE
CLICK HERE FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTERS
ARCHIVED
CLICK FOR
THE PICTURE PAGES CLICK HERE
FOR FOREIGN TRIP REPORTS
DIRECTIONS TO
BOATS and VETERANS PARK (REDONDO)
ZOOM SEEKERS ARCHIVED TALKS
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REEF SEEKERS REPAIR DEPARTMENT
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SAVE
33% ON YOUR REG, OCTO, OR BC REPAIR - CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW
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Trip report & pix, Citizen Science, & more
(please
scroll down for details) |
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I see light at the end of the (trip report)
tunnel . . .
WORKING ON IT -
These trip reports and pix always take me longer
to get completed than I usually anticipate.
(You'd think I'd learn by now.) But I'm pretty
sure I'll have everything written, tweaked, and
posted by tomorrow afternoon. You will get a
separate e-mail Monday afternoon. And, of
course, I'm talking abut our trip to Easter
Island. Hard to believe that we've been back a
week already. And it was very ice being gone the
two weeks. For me personally, that was pretty
much a perfect amount of time to be away. On top
of that, I really enjoy spending time on Easter
Island. I find the diving interesting, the moai
are simply out of this world, and it' simply a
very unique experience.
CITIZEN SCIENCE WHILE THERE -
You may have heard the term "citizen science"
before. In marine science terms, it's when we
take non-degreed non-professional people and
have time make observations or measurements out
in the field. These are usually well-trained
&/or well-educated people who simply lack a PhD
or MS in the particular field of study. Reef
Check is a good example of this as they use many
trained volunteer divers to gather data that's
then analyzed by scientists. The advantage of
citizen science is that you can generate a lot
of data but it may not be as rigorously and
specifically accurate as if taken by a trained
scientist. On the other hand, doing this just
with trained scientists means you increase the
accuracy of the data being collected but you
significantly reduce the amount of data you're
getting, so it takes a lot longer to collect
enough to draw any conclusions. That's why you
might hear about some 10-year study that comes
to a conclusion and you say, "Well, everyone
knows that" because you've been observing it for
years. This is all prologue to . .
THE UNDERWATER MOAI -
As you may have heard me mention before, there's
an underwater moai at Easter Island (just
outside the harbor) but it's not real. It's a
leftover prop from a movie that was shot in
1996. But that also means it's been underwater
for 29 years. The other time we've gone in the
past (2011 and 2019), I always make sure we dive
that spot and take photos of our divers with the
moai. So I was very curious - this is the
"citizen science" part - to see what the coral
growth has been over the years. And I was able
to take my shots from previous years and compare
them to the ones I got this year. Here's what I
got: |
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THE CONCLUSION -
You can definitely see a difference in the three
pix. In 2011, the moai had already been down
there for 15 years but was showing very little,
if any, coral growth. I would have expected
after all of that time, and 15 years certainly
seems like enough, that corals would have
settled on the surface and started growing. So
when we came back eight years later, in 2019, I
was very pleased to see significant coral growth
all over the head. And if you look closely at
the 2025 pictures, where another six years have
passed, you can see that many of the 2019 corals
are still in place and have simply grown larger,
especially around the chin. In fact, you might
expect, if we continued to measure the rate of
coral growth on a regular basis, that at some
point, the moai was be totally obscured by the
corals and will barely be visible. This is a
similar fate that has befallen old-time anchors
that have spent hundreds of years underwater.
The coral growth obscures what they really are.
Anyhow, just something I found interesting and
hopefully you will too.
PIX ALMOST DONE -
As I mentioned, I still need to sort through and
post pix to my SmugMug page. I will have both
underwater and topside images since both are
interesting. But here's two more underwater
shots just to give you a taste. While 25% of the
fish at Easter Island are endemic, there are
many that are not. These are two examples of
familiar fish. On the left is a Teardrop
Butterfly which is listed by Randall
(acknowledged as the Easter Island fish expert)
as rare but we saw them often. not every dive,
but many dives. And on the right is a Spiny
Cowfish, quite common and prolific and would
frequently swim right up to you to check you
out. As I said, you'll get a separate e-mail
tomorrow afternoon with links to the trip report
and the slideshow. |
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REEF SEEKERS CH-EVE TABLE SOLD OUT - As
I mentioned last week, there are still plenty of
seats available for Chamber Eve (Wednesday, May
7), just not at our table. But we've still got
plenty of room for you either at Virtual Chamber
Eve ($95 and you get a t-shirt, raffle tix, and
a link to the live-stream) or out on the Flying
Dutchman (Reef Seekers is usually the #1
recruiter but we're getting a run for our money
this year). And don't forget that there's always
the Chamber Challenge which is a direct donation
to our Chamber. Everything helps. The website
is www.chamberday.org,
the date is May 7, and we hope we'll be adding
your name to our lists of donors.
GOOD DEED OF THE WEEK -
It's not every day you can say you helped make
an animal's life better. It's certainly not
every day you can say that the animal in
question is a shark. And it's certainly not
every day you can say you did it free-diving.
But here's a video where divers spotted what
appears to be a full-grown grey reef shark with
a line wrapped tightly around it. The diver was
able to dive down, catch up with the shark, and
cut the line. It obviously left a scar on the
shark, which you can clearly see, but maybe that
will heal over time. But it's nice to see a good
deed done. Here's the link. (There's audio too.)
Not sure if you need FaceBook to view it or
not: MAKING
A SHARK'S LIFE BETTER.
APRIL IS ALMOST HERE -
For many reasons, it's among my favorite and
most challenging months. But where has March
gone? They're calling for overnight showers on
the last day of March. Shouldn't that be an
April thing? What else will April bring?
And that'll do it for now. Have a great week and
let's go diving soon!!!
- Ken |
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Ken Kurtis Owner - Reef Seekers Dive Co.
NAUI Instructor #5936
 
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Reserved.
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