Dry Tortugas day dive trip

[mike_s]

Sounds like the National Park Service is making it tough on everyone - not just the day operators. I can just imagine their rationalization would be full of Washington-speak. Cost recovery for accommodating a select few is one thing (mooring ball fee, for example) but turning "cost recovery" into a profit center is not too far from expoitation. How they justify taxing non-park gross would be interesting (if unbelievable) to see.

Thanks, Wookie, for providing some background to help ask our repective congressfolk the right questions.

I can agree with the mooring ball fee for commercial operators.

You can't anchor in the park (besides on the leeward side of the Fort for overnight anchoring). Well those mooring balls are installed at a cost by either the park service boats or by a contract boat. They have to be maintained yearly, ropes replaced, new buoys, etc. They also move some of them from year to year to keep particular spots from being over dove I think. (Wookie can verify that).

private boats aren't charged to use these, but the buoy fee for commercial operators helps make these a reality and keep people from anchoring in coral in the park.


taxing gross profits seems a bit ridiculous on top of the other fees, but I think that's typical of National Park Concessions elsewhere also.


$1250/year mooring ball fee, times 4 operators ($5,000/year) I doubt is enough to pay the contractor boats operating costs to maintain the buoys in a remote location like this. So I'm sure it has to be subsidised otherwise.

 

[Wookie]

Sounds like the National Park Service is making it tough on everyone - not just the day operators. I can just imagine their rationalization would be full of Washington-speak. Cost recovery for accommodating a select few is one thing (mooring ball fee, for example) but turning "cost recovery" into a profit center is not too far from expoitation. How they justify taxing non-park gross would be interesting (if unbelievable) to see.

Thanks, Wookie, for providing some background to help ask our repective congressfolk the right questions.

The day operators/ferries don't do anything else but run visitors to the park, but it gets more unbelievable than that. We used to (and currently still do) have 2 ferries that run to the park. For whatever reason, the Park Service decided that a monopoly would be better than competition, so they only issued one ferry permit. Both ferries applied for the permit, but Yankee Freedom was judged to have the stronger permit application, so they now have the permit. Sunny Days will cease operations at the end of summer, being left with a 80 foot catamaran ferry with no further use. Yankee Freedom will build a new vessel (because they said they would, even though 2 perfectly serviceable used boats have come on the market) to place in service because building a new boat is in their permit application, and NPS is holding their feet to the fire. Bureaucratic BS.

 

[Buoyant1]

Fire away. Any operator is welcome to pay the $250 application fee, the $650/year issuance fee, and the $1250/year mooring buoy fee. Day operators/ferries also get the golden opportunity to contribute 8.5% of their gross (not just park gross, but total gross) to the pot. Additionally, the rules for diving operators and the amount of safety equipment they have to carry (3 k bottles of O2, among others) may make it difficult for a smaller vessel to make the transit. In addition, don't forget the park entrance fee of $15/head. By all means, fire off a letter to your congressman. I look forward to seeing it.

That makes it sound even worse than I first envisioned! $2200 a year for the "PRIVILEGE" to dive a "NATIONAL PARK"!?!?! (not to mention the other fees) Talk about the fleecing of America!

Realistically, I honestly don't see this as a daily trip, economically it wouldn't be feasible for the average operator, but the odd shot of "Ok, we're headed out to DT every second Wednesday of every month" would be an appealing proposition, and if several operators took that sort of initiative, there's the potential for weekly trips without the need to do a live-aboard.

 

[Buoyant1]

The day operators/ferries don't do anything else but run visitors to the park, but it gets more unbelievable than that. We used to (and currently still do) have 2 ferries that run to the park. For whatever reason, the Park Service decided that a monopoly would be better than competition, so they only issued one ferry permit. Both ferries applied for the permit, but Yankee Freedom was judged to have the stronger permit application, so they now have the permit. Sunny Days will cease operations at the end of summer, being left with a 80 foot catamaran ferry with no further use. Yankee Freedom will build a new vessel (because they said they would, even though 2 perfectly serviceable used boats have come on the market) to place in service because building a new boat is in their permit application, and NPS is holding their feet to the fire. Bureaucratic BS.

That's just pathetic! Bureaucratic BS. is right!

 

[SC_Hoaty]

Thanks for the info. I'll sit here and shake my head, because most responses that are coming to mind would be better expressed in the Pub.

Now if it were only 5 o'clock, I could get a beer to go with this outrage! Hmmmmm

 

[Chugwhump]

Thanks for contributing to the thread Wookie.
I learned a lot from your info.

Chug
Cannot afford a "Spree" trip at the moment.
But the recession will end someday.....

 

[RickI]

I dove the Tortugas around Garden Key way back. There was endless coverage of staghorn in shallow water with some smaller massive coral heads around Ft. Jefferson at that time. Seems likely a good percentage of the staghorn is gone today but the massive corals are probably still there. What I didn't know at the time was that there are deeper reefs off Loggerhead Key and a few wrecks over the plateau. Some years later an UW archaeologist acquaintance, Larry Murphy did some cutting edge work on wrecks there, Windjammer Site The liveaboards likely have these more interesting, deeper spots dialed in. Good luck managing all those park fees, your government at work (on you)!

 

[MSPDiver]

Is the diving even that much better then Key Largo? IF so it might be worth the live aboard. But then again the Bahamas are right there.

 

[mike_s]

Is the diving even that much better then Key Largo? IF so it might be worth the live aboard. But then again the Bahamas are right there.

in my opinion, having dove both the Tortugas, Key Largo, and the Bahamas,..... it's a pretty easy decision which is better.


I think the Dry Tortugas are much better than Key Largo and a 10 times better than the Bahamas. (and I've done Bahamas by shore several times and a Bahamas liveaboard. )

Don't get me wrong, the diving in Key Largo is excellent too. But the Reefs are much better and bigger in the Tortugas over the rest of the keys. But Key Largo area does have LOTs of wrecks sunk as reefs compared to the Tortugas. so it has it's advantages also.

 

[DebbyDiver]

I haven't dived Dry Tortugas in over 20 years, but realize that nobody lives there so you have a lot less human impact on the reefs and surrounding areas. That's why I enjoyed Cay Sal Bank so much last year, nobody lives there and it's wild.