This winter in nearby Pompano Beach I was surprised by the lack of diving activity. In past years, the marina there had had 6 active dive boats --2 for Pompano Dive Center, 3 for South Florida Diving Headquarters, and 1 for ScubaTyme. When I arrived this past January, I learned that Pompano Dive Center was permanently down to 1 boat, and that boat was often booked for shark tagging, meaning no diving from it. ScubaTyme's boat was out for maintenance. SFDH often had only 1 boat running because only enough people for one boat had signed up. On a number of occasions, there was no possibility of diving from that marina because there were not enough booked divers to send out a boat--they required 4. I had a couple of booked dives canceled because of lack of enough divers.
I contacted someone from ScubBoard who is active in the Key West area. He said the same thing was happening there. He said there were days when the dive shops had zero customers. A big day raked in $17.
Is this getting to be the standard for winter operations, or is the decline in relation to the hurricane damage sustained last year?