Ken Kurtis was kicked out of swim class twice by the time he was six. (He didn’t like putting his face in the water.) Hardly an auspicious start to a diving career. But Ken always loved being around the water, loved looking at fish, and in 1978 while running a radio station in Richmond, VA, was offered a chance to get certified and took advantage of it. Ken then became a NAUI Instructor (Top Candidate at his 1980 ITC) and has taught thousands of people over the years. As the owner of Reef Seekers Dive Co. (Beverly Hills, CA), he speaks frequently to dive clubs about diving and especially safety issues. Ken’s been chairman of Chamber Day/Eve since the early 90s (an annual fund-raiser for the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber), served as a member of the Statewide Interests Group for the California MLPA (Marine Life Protection Act) charged with creating a network of MPAs in state-controlled waters, and is a volunteer Dive Team Leader at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, CA. Ken’s photos and stories have been featured in the pages of the California Diving News, Sport Diver, Skin Diver, Undercurrent and other scuba publications, along with the monthly Reef Seekers newsletter.

Ken first heard about Yap when he was maybe ten years old and read (he thinks) a story from Thor Heyerdahl about this place where they used stone as money. He recalls seeing an illustration of two young men carrying a piece of stone money using a piece of wood stuck through the middle of the stone. And at that ripe young age he thought to himself, “I’ve got to go see that.” It took him until 2002 to do so, but he’s been back almost every year since then. And since his groups always take the same rooms – 306, 307, 308, and 309 – Bill Acker has even hung a sign that proclaims that part of the hotel the “Ken Kurtis Wing.”

On every dive, Ken’s got a camera is his hands and currently shoots with a Nikon D750 in an Ikelite housing. He uses dual Sea&Sea YS-D1 strobes and mainly shoots with his beloved Nikon 28-105mm lens or a 105mm macro. His favorite shot is when a fish will stare directly into his lens. “It’s really hard to get a fish to be trusting enough or curious enough to stare right at you, so I appreciate the challenge.”

Ken and Bill Acker hit it off immediately back in 2002, probably because their favorite two letters of the alphabet are B and S. They’ve shared many adventures over the years and their most recent one – they’re both avid golfers – was getting VIP tickets to attend the final round of the 2023 U.S. Open which was held at the Los Angeles Country Club, only two miles from where Ken lives.

With all of that going on, Ken still finds time to maintain an acting career in L.A. and leads all of the local and foreign trips for Reef Seekers. He’s a very good cook, avid Scrabble & Boggle player, chases total solar eclipses, ran five L.A. Marathons, and is kind to animals and small children. Be sure to ask him his mantra about divers. He also 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.