Posted by Eric S on March 18, 2005 at 19:12:16:
In Reply to: Is there much beginner diving up there? posted by seahunt on March 18, 2005 at 10:21:08:
Is there much beginner diving up here?
The answer is no.
It starts at intermediate, most is advanced and some is extreme.
But then my view of where these catagorical lines are might be different from someone from Socal or elsewhere.
Generally the diving off a boat in these parts would not be advisable for a beginner fresh out of open water class. That is problem number one for a dive charter. Dive charters need to be able to draw from a wide client base so a large percentage would be absent right there.
There really would be no place to take a class on a boat that couldn't be done from shore faster cheaper and safer.
Next, the boat would have to run fully paid charters only, no open boats. This creates another logistical nightmare. It would take a club or organization to book the whole boat, and that just isn't going to happen every weekend and probably never during the week.
Then there's the weather, always the weather up here. *%$%^$&*%#*&
With fishing, DFG has closed recreational boat based angling for rockfish till the end of July, I believe? They don't even know if they will open salmon this year. There is always albacore but that's 40 - 60 miles out and then only when the wind and swell permits it. They drop crab traps but after the commercial super crabbers came down from Oregon and Washington and let 60 thousand pounds of crab die in their holds because they did not have the logistics to off load it fast enough there really is not much left for recreational fishing charters to pick through. The catches are pretty poor.
They talked about sand dabs but could you imagine granpa out there paying his $60 bucks to go out and puke his guts out for a measly stringer of sand dabs? Yeah, that'll work!
They closed down cordell banks so bottom fishing is off limits out there now too. The thing is, all these closures I know are necessary, but they are all caused by commercial overfishing! It's not fair!!
Whale watching only fetches 25 dollars a head and mostly only on the weekends do they get enough tourists to get a dozen or so people.
So that's why I say in a year or two there will be no more charter boats of any kind up here.
Thinking more and more about it, I am convinced that even if one of them went full blown into diving that wouldn't even save them. There is just way to much overhead and not enough dive days. Most people consider the diving up here to be crappy anyway because the vis is low and the water is rough so they will not pay $75 to $100 to go out and be miserable.
Did you know that more divers than not consider good vis and flat calm conditions more important that the substance of what you saw on the dive?
Personally I would rather see a spectacular living reef in ice cold horrendous conditions that an urchin barren in good vis and warm water.
But like I said, what do I care, I got a boat!