Yeah, 23 miles out off of Pensacola. How many times are people going to do that trip...
Many. 20 miles is a normal run for me and many others. Its only an hour from the pass in most boats; a bit over an hour (about 70 minutes) in mine. The shop here in town that caters to divers with a clue (that is, the one that doesn't mind guys with doubles and long hoses) will be running regular trips - they have already made that clear. They have a nice FAST boat that, while only a six-pack, gets up and scoots. (They also have a slower cattle boat; I assume they won't run that one out there.)
IN SFL, it would have been ALOT closer, and done alot MORE for the area dive charters than in Pensacola.
SFL has dozens of quality wrecks already of significant size. We have none, except the Ozark, which is FORTY miles offshore and in over 300' of water. Completely inaccessible to anyone without an advanced Trimix cert.
The impact for the area dive charters here is not limited to Pensacola - Destin will be equally impacted in a positive way, as the deployment site is almost equidistant from the Pensacola and Destin passes.
Not too many people are going to be willing to do that run. Even if it is an aircraft carrier...
False.
This isn't Miami where people think that a 10 minute run is too damn long.
My average day on the water diving clocks about 70nm of distance covered, dock-to-dock. The planned deployment site is no further out for me than the sites I usually visit. I am not in any way, shape or form unusual in that regard. There are HUNDREDS of private boats that regularly run that kind of distance to dive, and many shops in the area as well (more out of Pensacola than in Destin though.)
The water quality offshore in the deployment area is STUNNING most of the time. Visability of 100' is not all that uncommon, temperatures are reasonable year-round, we do not get the "inversions" that SE Florida gets, and in general this is a VERY nice area to dive. This is not some bridge rubble stack a half-mile off the coast; the waters 20 nm offshore here are stunningly beautiful.
Dive Miami's actions over the last month or so may have cost them their reconsideration. In particular, the game they ran on PADI blew up in their face when the PADI pros up here got THEIR copies of the email, and hell was raised with PADI. A couple of days later, a "mea culpa" email came from PADI clarifying that they were supporting no particular location.
Internally, PADI's folks were furious at being had by the Dive Miami people. I had a long conversation with their main offices out in California - they were NOT happy at how they were led to send the original email.
When was the last time you saw PADI take
anything back?
Tell 'ya what - as soon as she's down and open for bizness, if you want to dive her, give a holler and let me know when you'll be here. You can bet it'll be one of my favorite and frequent sites.
