With the state of the world economy, land based options are keeping their weekly rates quite low, some are just trading dollars. The Bay Islands ops have this in their DNA, as they have had to starve themselves to offset the robbery practiced by the airlines since TACA showed up.
Businessmen like predictable fixed costs. Fuel oil is not one of those things, and for a liveaboard, this is huge.
A liveaboard has utility in an area otherwise unserved by viable dive ops.
If it operates around land based dive ops (which are going to be a comparative bargain) it has little chance of survival. You don't sell a Bay Island liveaboard by anchoring off the common dive sites of Roatan. I believe it hep to kill two.
There's tremendous diversity in the geography of Bay Islands dive sites, so that might be a draw.... If you kept running the engine. Unless you move a liveaboard and burn fuel- why bother?
There are very few geographic options to establish good moorings in the Bay Islands. The largest area would be the South side of Roatan, and to my interests, that would be ideal, but it's shallow and has u/w terrain shape that can be repetitive. Establishing moorings on North side sites would be deep and cost prohibitive... No captain would likely spend the night with that exposure.
The original BI liveaboards made quite a name for themselves by destroying moorings designed for day boats. BIA could often be seen tied to the top of Mary's Place, hogging it for two days. Finally they installed one to suit their tonnage. It takes a huge investment.
Consider the archipelago of the Islas de la Bahia, from a monohull Captain's perspective. Comfortable speed of 12mph at favorable tack so as to not hurt anyone. This is not a pleasant happy place to find glassy waters when considering transit from Guanaja, Barbareta Cays, to Cayos Cochinos, over to the Sea Mount, Cordelia Banks. Combine the need to depart from the cheapest locale (not from the dock near Roatan's airport), getting people to that dock (over in Utila), possibly hanging nearby for a day waiting for luggage to arrive?
Add to that the "H" factor. You are operating under the heavy government authority with all of the attached social pressures. This, I can tell you for a fact, kept at least one real-deal liveaboard operator out of the Bay Islands.
If you know somebody that really wants to do his, tell him to look elsewhere.
... I have jeard that there are private charters being run from the Laguna Beach resort in Utila and that they may soon start open 'public' cruises.
Those seemingly different activities are identical. The only distinction you might infer is that in #2 they would be advertising, and in version #1 they have enough business already that they're all set.
Do not confuse base of operations with ownership. I love the LBR, and I would consider buying their LAB trip from them.
Any number of people with Cabin Cruisers have gotten paperwork and taken folks out diving. The last one in the BI was the Tabutne/Divers at Play. Most of them work out (not) along those lines.
You need unimaginable working capital. For the buyer of dive travel, liveaboards present the major pig in the poke of our industry. When you're on the water, things can be pretty fluid.
