Matt -
Thanks for the nice words. To answer your queries:
- No, I don't dive anymore (ear problems) and have never dived in Florida. I did all my diving in Hawaii and Southern CA. But there are lots of online journals and such describing the sites (see the links at the bottom of my 'Dive Sites' page) and, given that, there's no such thing as a 'bad' reef. The main thing is to pick a reef that specializes in what you're interested in, and some of the sites I link to are quite descriptive.
- I don't offer any kind of discount plan on the site because I'm already charging $10 less than the 'cattle car' dive boats -- and for a no-specific-time-limit dive -- but yeah, I'd be happy to offer a discount (10%?) if we had a 'guaranteed' dive of, say, 4 guests over 3 days. A couple of days wouldn't mean much as that's fairly common, and "during the week" doesn't mean much since -- as any travel brochure will tell you --
every day is a holiday in a tropical island paradise.
"Waiter! Another mai tai, please!"
- You could certainly reserve the gear ahead of time at one of the numerous dive shops in the area, although I've never heard of one running out. And, if they did, just drive 50 feet to the next dive shop. This area is so water-oriented that there are entire stores devoted to nothing but snorkeling.
- I'd love to do night dives, but doing so would make my insurance skyrocket. For some odd reason, the insurers seem to have a problem with boaters navigating shoal-filled, reef-laden waters in the pitch black. Go figger! I'd be willing to stay out overnight (anchoring at sundown), but that comes under the heading of "cruises" and would be much more expensive than a couple of back-to-back dive trips.
As I look out my window, the water in the marina looks like a sheet of glass. Should be the perfect day to dive.
Hope to see you down here sometime,
Cap'n Chuck