Nekton (Bad News)

[underwater life]

Okay, but... What's the sense of all of thisthough?

People make bad business decisions all the time, most of them have likely greater effect to the world than this mess.

Forming various different corporations is a commonly accepted practice. All businessmen compartmentalize their endeavors, it protects them from liability first and foremost, it has tax advantages, and it makes accounting easier.

Thinking that anyone would fly from Florida to California in a private aircraft, even a pressurized twin, tells me only one thing- you have no idea what that would cost in terms of gas (versus commercial aviation) as well as tooth damage caused by vibration. If he did that more than once, he must be truly, clinically insane.

I'm not beating a deadhorse RoatanMan. (Pretty bad use of that too - Drama Much?). I'm simply getting the facts straight like you always do.

I never said anything about the airplane flying from Florida to California either. So, go back and check who said what. I know the plane he once had couldn't do that. However, if he purchased a new plane, well maybe it could.

 

[cappyjon431]

Sadly the truth is that had the boats been kept up a bit better, most folks would have paid another couple of hundred for trips. Nekton kept their prices in the $1800 range while Aggressor and Hughes were in the $2400 range. If the Pilot had been kept close to the condition the Aggressor and Hughes boats are kept, I wouldn't have had any problem paying $2000-2100 per trip. Nekton had a great dive platform for a liveaboard and I was totally sold after being in a storm in Belize and enjoying my dinner while watching the Hughes boat disappear and reappear in the waves (barf!).

JD backed himself into a corner by trading low cost trips to try to fill the boats with deferred maintenance that never got done. Slowly the boats went into disrepair and the reputation went with it. Then as he couldn't make his payroll/bills/etc. on-time, he lost excellent and long-time crew. Vicious cycle that snowballed out of control to this point.

Actually, we loved the Pilot so much in Belize that we returned for a back-to-back 18 months later to the Bahamas. Unfortunately, that 18 months had not been good for the Pilot, she looked like she hadn't had any maintenance at all, and was in huge need of an overhaul then. I can only imagine how bad it got in the 2 years since before she went to drydock, never to return.

I think you raise some very legitimate points, and from all I heard on this board (as well as from those working for Nekton) maintenance was frequently overlooked.

I think that this raises a very interesting question: Why was maintenace such a low priority? In order to answer this question there are three issues that I believe contributed to the decline in basic maintenance.

1. Decreased income. Less people were going out on Nekton boats but costs for operating the boats increased dramatically after 911. Less money available put many necessary repairs on the backburner. DiveMaven, you are correct, if they had raised their prices AND earmarked the extra money coming in for repairs and maintenance this might have alleviated the problem. The only caveat here is that increasing prices might have reduced the number of guests.

2. Disappearence of long term crew. Most folks who have been on the Nekton boats knew Captain Ephey. He was a real stickler for making sure the boats were cleaned properly and that the office was notified of any necessary repairs for when the boat came into port. Ephey trained myself and Capt. Chris and we followed his model for boat maintenance. Once Ephey, Chris and myself left things started to deteriorate (although Captain Nelson also did a good job, by the time he started running the boats they were already in pretty bad shape, so he did not have a lot to work with).

3. Lengthening of the itineraries. When I first started with Nekton (1995) our charters departed on Saturday evenings and returned late Friday afternoons. JD thought it would be better for guests to get an extra day of diving so he had the boats return on Saturday mornings instead (this also saved on dockage fees as the boats were only in port for one day). Coming in on Friday afternoons gave us more time to do all the work necessary to turn the boats around properly for the Saturday evening departure. Most guests never realize how difficult a one day turnaround is. On Saturdays we had to disembark guests (with customs and immigration when based in Lauderdale), provision the boat, fuel the boat, clean the boat, launder the linens, make necessary repairs, do accounting (dividing up crew tips, etc.), schedule the crew for the upcoming week, board and brief the new guests, etc. These were ALWAYS 18-20 hour days for all the crew. When we had guests depart Friday afternoons, this gave much more time for attending to maintenance issues. These one day turnarounds left many crew members burned out and caused a high turnover rate. But the most important issue was that less time was available for maintenance.

 

[cappyjon431]

I'm not beating a deadhorse RoatanMan. (Pretty bad use of that too - Drama Much?). I'm simply getting the facts straight like you always do.

I never said anything about the airplane flying from Florida to California either. So, go back and check who said what. I know the plane he once had couldn't do that. However, if he purchased a new plane, well maybe it could.

Doc, it was deepdiver4u who wrote this: "has his own personal airplane (which he uses to fly his kids to California nearly every weekend for their sailing club.)," not underwater life. Since I was on JD's plane as recently as November, 2009 I know this statement is untrue. It is a very small plane, and taking his kids for sailing club "nearly every weekend" is untrue.

Underwater life's "ifs" and "maybes" don't carry a lot of weight in light of the facts.

 

[underwater life]

2. Disappearence of long term crew. Most folks who have been on the Nekton boats knew Captain Ephey. He was a real stickler for making sure the boats were cleaned properly and that the office was notified of any necessary repairs for when the boat came into port. Ephey trained myself and Capt. Chris and we followed his model for boat maintenance. Once Ephey, Chris and myself left things started to deteriorate (although Captain Nelson also did a good job, by the time he started running the boats they were already in pretty bad shape, so he did not have a lot to work with).

cappyjon, you make this sound like Ephey, Chris and you all quit at the same time. This isn't true. Ephey stayed with the company for quite a long time after you quit, and Chris quit. Nelson did a fabulous job with the company, in fact working hard to bring the crew/boat and office staff to work together.

I wholeheartedly agree that the maintenance of the boats is a huge issue here, whether it was weekly or at the annual overhaul/maintenence.

 

[donhealy]

I have stayed out of this thread for a while as the comments and discussion seemed to meander away from the from the cogent and thoughtful to the trite and mean spirited.

Cappyjon and Divemaven, thanks for a reasonable and thoughtful discussion. Your thoughts are on point.

I know I would have paid a few hundred more and returned on a Friday afternoon for the betterment of the boats and the crew. Certainly, I paid more for the Aqua Cat and the CEX II and returned to port on Friday afternoons.

I feel bad for JD and the Nekton employees. I doubt JD planed for this to be the ultimate outcome. Like most businessmen, he put a lot of his heart and soul into the business. He got trapped into making desperate decisions that built on each previous one. When you keep chasing like he has, the inevitable outcome is always negative with unanticipated results. I lost my $2200, others are in the same situation. JD has lost a company and his employees have lost their jobs and cash. No one wins here!

Don

 

[cappyjon431]

I have stayed out of this thread for a while as the comments and discussion seemed to meander away from the from the cogent and thoughtful to the trite and mean spirited.

Cappyjon and Divemaven, thanks for a reasonable and thoughtful discussion. Your thoughts are on point.

I know I would have paid a few hundred more and returned on a Friday afternoon for the betterment of the boats and the crew. Certainly, I paid more for the Aqua Cat and the CEX II and returned to port on Friday afternoons.

I feel bad for JD and the Nekton employees. I doubt JD planed for this to be the ultimate outcome. Like most businessmen, he put a lot of his heart and soul into the business. He got trapped into making desperate decisions that built on each previous one. When you keep chasing like he has, the inevitable outcome is always negative with unanticipated results. I lost my $2200, others are in the same situation. JD has lost a company and his employees have lost their jobs and cash. No one wins here!

Don

Don, thank you for being a voice of reason. I am incredibly sorry that you lost your $2200. I know that if it happened to me (and it has before for a planned trip to
Bikini Atoll) I would be very angry and I would be inclined to say some nasty things about the company that "ripped me off." That has been the overwhelming response on this thread, and I consider it only natural--it's hiuman instinct. I also feel for former crew members who should have been paid their salary and tips that they were owed. I know what it is like to work my arse off on a liveaboard and while I only had pay withheld for a about a year (we had our salary decreased 50% immediately after 911, but JD did pay us retroactively once the business picked up again), I understand the anger this has generated. Once again it is only human nature. I also feel for JD. He put his heart and soul into this company, and back when I was on the boat he outworked all of us--he was often down in the bilges alongside crew members (and he was always dirtier than any of us). When I worked in the office it was not unusual to see him pull all nighters trying to fix problems that arose on the boats.

I think that people need to keep in perspective that the economy is really in trouble and that many businesses are failing all around the world. Some are due to mismanagement, some are due to forces outside of management's control. All of these business failures hurt owners, employees, customers, suppliers, etc. Because Nekton's demise affects those of us in the dive industry specifically (customers, crew, etc.) this failure affects us more than (lets say) the closing of an auto parts manufacturing facility in Detroit. Unfortunately, the results are the same, owners, customers, employees all suffer. Nobody wins when businesses go under. I now own my own dive related business, and the effects of the economy are taking their toll on my business. There are just not as many people travelling/diving as there used to be. There are many threads on Scubaboard about excellent dive shops who have failed in the last few years. I worry daily about making payroll, being able to repair/replace outboards, compressors, and dive gear, and paying my bills. It is very stressful, but I am blessed to be able to do what I love.

 

[cappyjon431]

cappyjon, you make this sound like Ephey, Chris and you all quit at the same time. This isn't true. Ephey stayed with the company for quite a long time after you quit, and Chris quit. Nelson did a fabulous job with the company, in fact working hard to bring the crew/boat and office staff to work together.

I wholeheartedly agree that the maintenance of the boats is a huge issue here, whether it was weekly or at the annual overhaul/maintenence.

I did not mean to imply that all these folks left at the same time. What I was saying was that long term crew members (Ephey worked for 10 years, I worked on the boat for 8 years, and Chris K. worked for over 6 years) left the company. When long term crew members leave, it usually creates a vacuum that leads to issues with the boats.

Nelson was an awesome captain (I hired him when I was working in the office and I trained him with many of the boat operations). Unfortunately, Nelson came on the boat long after the company had begun its downward spiral and it made it difficult for him to do his job as effectively as he could have.

 

[kelly7552]

All,

I took one of Ephy's last Belize cruises on the Nekton and I also signed up for one of the first Puerto Rico/USVI tours about 3 years ago. What I think I saw was a dive operation in decline. I've booked another liveaboard, this time with aggressor in the Cayman Islands in a few weeks. I'll be curious what the difference will be. I took my two teenage children with me and we all heard crew complaints about overwork, underpay. On my first trip we paid for NITROX, on my second trip NITROX didn't work and hadn't for some time. The Pilot in Belize had tremendous condensation problems and the lower floor smelled severely of mold. The crew happily replaced wet soiled bedding from the leaks above the ceiling.

Ephy ran a tight ship and all the crew respected him, but they were understaffed; one of the locals was narc'd and needed to be out of the water and another DM had a sinus infection. My daughter finished her certification on the boat and I came to understand that this was a 'volunteer' job, the DM 'volunteered' to help apparently unpaid.

Things in PR were way more chaotic. Captain Nelson had the week off, and was replaced by a couple of young men in their 20's who didn't have the command of Ephy or presumably Nelson. We had some great dives and we had some crap dives, but I was left with a bad feeling because it really appeared that this destination was a place to get money, the crew said "Well if you come back to the USVI during the summer the diving is much better", when you ivest $6K for three of us to dive, it's kind of irritating to find out that the boat took you to a crappy destination.

I had already decided to try the Aggressor this winter and I sure am happy I did. I have VERY fond memories of Beleize and Ehpy and the Nekton; less fond of Puerto Rico. Clearly thoughout the last few years we customers heard a lot of crap from DM's First mates cooks and mechanics aboard about their complaints. I think if the organization were better run this would not have been the case.

 

[cappyjon431]

All,

I took one of Ephy's last Belize cruises on the Nekton and I also signed up for one of the first Puerto Rico/USVI tours about 3 years ago. What I think I saw was a dive operation in decline. I've booked another liveaboard, this time with aggressor in the Cayman Islands in a few weeks. I'll be curious what the difference will be. I took my two teenage children with me and we all heard crew complaints about overwork, underpay. On my first trip we paid for NITROX, on my second trip NITROX didn't work and hadn't for some time. The Pilot in Belize had tremendous condensation problems and the lower floor smelled severely of mold. The crew happily replaced wet soiled bedding from the leaks above the ceiling.

Ephy ran a tight ship and all the crew respected him, but they were understaffed; one of the locals was narc'd and needed to be out of the water and another DM had a sinus infection. My daughter finished her certification on the boat and I came to understand that this was a 'volunteer' job, the DM 'volunteered' to help apparently unpaid.

Things in PR were way more chaotic. Captain Nelson had the week off, and was replaced by a couple of young men in their 20's who didn't have the command of Ephy or presumably Nelson. We had some great dives and we had some crap dives, but I was left with a bad feeling because it really appeared that this destination was a place to get money, the crew said "Well if you come back to the USVI during the summer the diving is much better", when you ivest $6K for three of us to dive, it's kind of irritating to find out that the boat took you to a crappy destination.

I had already decided to try the Aggressor this winter and I sure am happy I did. I have VERY fond memories of Beleize and Ehpy and the Nekton; less fond of Puerto Rico. Clearly thoughout the last few years we customers heard a lot of crap from DM's First mates cooks and mechanics aboard about their complaints. I think if the organization were better run this would not have been the case.

There is no doubt that Nekton has been on the decline for the past few years. There are just too many posts on Scubaboard from ex-guests and former crew to ignore.

As far as being understaffed, this happens from time to time. Crew members do get sick. They frequently catch the same crud brought onboard by guests who have been on planes on the way to their destination, breathing recirculated air the entire flight. It is rarely possible to get crew to hop onboard at the last minute, especially if the boat is based overseas (like Belize or Puerto Rico). That is one of the reasons Nekton usually (although not always) ran with a crew of 12, one of the biggest crews in the liveaboard industry.

Just so you know, doing OW check out dives on the Pilot has always been a volunteer thing. Nekton's "Learn to Dive for Free" program was pretty revolutionary when it was first instroduced. They would pay a local dive shop up to $250 to do the academics and confined water training and then an instructor on the boat would do the check-out dives (without compensation). Instructors would geta 15% commission for Advanced and specialties, but since Nekton was subsidizing the OW students there were no commissions for them. I always volunteered to do them because when I first started working for Nekton I was a brand new instructor and I wanted the experience teaching.

I was never a big fan of the Mona Island/Puerto Rico itinerary. I did enjoy the diving, but from a captain's perspective I hated the live boat diving. Too much potential for emergencies. I'm sorry you did not enjoy the diving there, as many folks raved about it. I guess the same could be said for most of nekton's itineraries--most folks liked them but there were always some who were disappointed.

 

[robint]

Capt Ephey was truly the best boat capt we have ever dealt with, day-boat or liveaboard. Here he is chatting with a few guests on our first Nekton trip:

great guy.

robin