Posted by Divenerd on March 06, 2001 at 13:09:41:
In Reply to: How to increase BT's posted by MHK on March 05, 2001 at 18:14:36:
I am pretty new to scuba and my next training
class will probably be Nitrox, but here's my
thoughts:
I was thinking that Nitrox might have less appeal
in general in the LA area, as opposed to San Diego,
because the average dive boat trip may be a
little different. I imagine that Wreck Alley,
specifically the Yukon, created a bunch of dive
sites that are well suited for Nitrox. I think
the Yukon has also become some sort of minor
tourist attraction for divers also, which
would bring in tourists from places where
Nitrox is more popular, resulting in even more
Customer demand for Nitrox. I think about 75%
of the boat trips out of San Pedro or LA go to
the front side of Catalina. Since most people I
have met consider anything greater than 60 feet
to be deep, I would suppose that most of the
divers spend most of their time in 30-60feet of
water. I could be mistaken, since I have only
been to Catalina a few times. Few people consider
Nitrox worth the extra fill money for dives in
the 0-60 foot range, so they are not so
interested in it. Also, since its not available
on the boats, and it sounds like it's a hassle to
bring a bunch of tanks aboard, less people would
be interested in pursuing certification. That
would create a "What comes first - the chicken or
the egg" type of problem. I suppose San Diego
got past this because wreck alley created a
demand.
Just some thoughts.
P.S. Maybe we can get all the Dive boats in
San Pedro together some night and go down to
San Diego and drag the Yukon up here. Then
we should start getting demand for nitrox.