Decisions, decisions....

Aloha,

We opened up the retail shop this spring and ran it 9 am to 5 pm all summer and have taken a look at the numbers coming into fall. Reluctantly, after realizing keeping the shop open adds about 3000 bucks to the payroll each month, which means the combined boat/shop needs to do about 5000 bucks more each month than it's already been doing without the shop, we've decided to stop manning the "store" all day, everyday.

Happily, the boat business is as strong or stronger than ever coming into the fall, and we'll be keeping the "office" location for morning meets, classes, and sales after the charters. I'll be manning the shop for an hour or two after day charters, and by appointment. Coming into our "slow" season, this move will give us the ability to continue servicing our charter customers and give me the ability to take an occasional day off (woohoo!) when I don't have dive charters going out.

It was a very busy summer for us, just not quite the numbers needed to justify keeping the shop open full time coming in to the leaner months. Hopefully we can revisit the whole retail thing at a later date.

Diving!!!!!!!! I've got a manta dive tonight, intros tomorrow, three manta dives next week and day dives the rest of the time, so my month is pretty much filled out. It'll be exciting to see what October brings.

Here's a picture of a diver taking photos of a group of Bluestripe Snappers that hangs out at a spot we dive. These fish are one of 10-12 species imported back in the 50s with the idea that they'd be a great addition to our reefs... now, along with the Bluespot Grouper, they're a pest. I think only 3 of the introduced species survived through to today.

Later,

Steve