Posted by Chris on April 04, 2004 at 13:42:01:
In Reply to: What happened to a reasonable trip to Catalina? posted by AD on April 04, 2004 at 09:53:23:
In course of doing my California Dive Boat Page I have talked with many of the boat owners throughout this state. The ones I know well all strive to run a good operation, at a fair price. From the money they charge they must maintain the boat, buy food, pay for fuel, make boat payments, pay the landing (per foot fee & percentage of charter fees), buy equipment to comply with new Coast Guard requirements, make improvements to the boat, pay for advertising, pay for phone lines, electricity, etc., pay the crew, and hopefully have enough left over to support themselves. The dive boat operations that stay in business all need to charge enough to pay for cover expenses and clear some profit to live on, which is the nature of our free enterprise system. The ones that do not charge enough charge too much, or run poor operations go out of business.
As you can see from my California Dive Boat Page you have many choices of operations to do business with. When you compare the cost of a motel room, food, and other forms of recreation the cost of a dive boat trip in California is a bargain. If you are unhappy with one, try another. Most good operations have almost full calendars once they have time (a few years) to establish a clientele base. However openings occur and new operations with calendar openings appear regularly. You have many choices, and most charge fair prices. I believe the prices of dive boat trips are fair, and your lamenting about the increasing cost is misplaced.