Please join us next Monday, November 12, for “Scuba Fatality Investigations” presented by Ken Kurtis of Reef Seekers Dive Co.
For those of you that do not know Ken, he has been a great friend to our club, and is one of the most active divers (above and below the water) in the Southern California dive scene. He’ll explain what they, as investigators do and why, give some LA County stats, give some national stats that he has recently compiled and end with some recommendations about how you can avoid become the topic of our discussion. Very timely considering we had a fatality opening weekend and just had one this past Saturday at the UW Park.
Ken was certified in 1978 as part of a radio station promotion to set a Guinness record for underwater broadcasting. He became a NAUI Instructor in 1980 and has taught thousands of people over the years. He’s logged close to 5000 dives, still actively teaches everything from entry-level on up, and confesses his favorite class to teach is Fish Identification. Ken leads foreign trips (Sea of Cortez, Yap, Palau, Bonaire, Midway Island, Fiji, Maldives, Papua New Guinea, Cayman, and the Bahamas are just a few of the stamps in his passport) as well as diving on most of his local charters. He’s served as chairman of Chamber Day/Eve since the early 90s, has been a volunteer Diver/Team Leader at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach since 1998, shoots photos and writes for local and national scuba publications, and is a familiar face to television viewers in Los Angeles. Ken’s also hosted various TV shows, commercials, and infomercials (no, he can’t get you a deal on the frying pan) that have run nationally and internationally. Ken claims to hold the Reef Seekers deep diving record of 3500′ . . . but we have to add the caveat that he did it in the Alvin submersible for a PBS special so that might be cheating.
www.reefseekers.com
