Private Dive Boats

[Johnoly]

...I know some like to feel that their "secret" sites are for them alone,,,,,, If they could find the spot, so could others.......

And with stationary items on a secret spot, I 100% agree with you>>>there are no secrets, just time till they are known.

But in my case I'm a lobster harvester on a 1 mile long drift dive that takes 45 mins of bottom time to cover. So even if you have my secret spot it's a roll of the dice for the other boat to waste a whole tank and burn a dive just to figure out I hit that spot last week and took a population census to turn in the results. And the coin has two sides, I've back dove really good drift dives and gotten burned with not a single thing in sight.

We have a joke on board,,,"That was way too pretty and touristy,,,put me on something flat and ugly"

 

[sheeper]

my buddies and I often dive on private boats. That said, we are all highly experienced divers, tech instructors and some serious expedition backgrounds. We go private we just do some hunting, some lobstering or kill some lionfish. We keep it easy and simple. There is NO fee or expectation of payment (important legal point there).

My shop boats will run hunter specific trips that DO NOT go to those well known sites. We have scoped out spots that are not pretty, not popular and not frequented. Hunting is usually great. We will limit out on bugs, fill zookeepers with lionfish and nail some nice fish. We often run these on Wednesdays and call these "Wandering Wednesdays". I hesitate to call these "secret spots". They are just infrequently traveled!

 

[sportxlh]

When I used to live in Florida, until last year, I used charters most of the time but also went out on friend's boats. I found diving on private boats expensive: we usually had 3 on the boat with the two guests spitting the fuel bill. With twin 250's we always blew through a lot of gas. When fuel was $4+ per gallon, I always threw in $75 or more into the fuel kittie.

Many charters have prepaid trip cards which at the time got the average price of a two tank trip to $50 or so. At least that's what the cost was with Jupiter Dive Center at the time. JDC also used to give separate drops to lobster hunters, near the main reef line but in places where lobsters were more likely to be found. Sometimes Captain Mike or Tim would drop divers on their own personal pgs spots when they had a significant number of regulars on the boat and they liked those divers.

I wasn't a great hunter so came back with the same number of bugs whether on a friend's boat or on a charter: usually with 3 or 4.

Summary: private boats are fun because of the company and ability to dive a completely unique site but were always more expensive for me and didn't guaranty me greater success while bugging.

 

[CuzzA]

Two tank trip is why it's $50 though. Private boat we can dive as much as we want.

 

[sportxlh]

Cuzza, good point. We tended to still do two tanks off the private boat too. Mostly because we were all married and didn't want to make our non-diving spouses 'scuba widows'. We used to joke and say that we didn't want trips to be longer than a round of golf, because we all had friends that abandoned thier families to golf every weekend. We also did some of the diving after work in the evening, so were ready to call it quits by 10:00. Usually we'd only stay out 3 or 4 hours, whether a work evening or weekend. If one did, say 4 dives instead of 2, the fuel cost starts to look good compared to a charter.

 

[Texasguy]

I am curious how logistics works. Do you dive in groups? That is one group is minding the boat, another dives, then change? Or do you moor/anchor the boat, all dive in, leaving the boat unattended?

 

[MaxBottomtime]

If we're making a blue water dive photographing jellies we have someone drive the boat while the others drift. When diving a wreck or reef we anchor and everyone gets in the water at the same time.

 

[Texasguy]

Not afraid to come to surface and find yourself without a boat?

 

[MaxBottomtime]

We don't dive in current or in areas where someone could swim out and steal the boat. I have 216 feet of chain and we make sure the anchor is set before we swim away.

 

[Texasguy]

How can you tell that the area you are in is not one "where someone could swim out and steal the boat"?