 |
Key West, Florida, USA |
 |
|
Key West, Florida, USA |
|
1. Some of our competition are what we call "cattle boats" where they pack people in like cattle, 22 or so people on a small boat. We take a maximum of 6 people for lots of elbow room and more individualized service. Plus we let our customers swim near the dolphins when the conditions permit and none of the cattle boats do that. Our boat is about 3 to 4 times faster than the cattle boats so our customers are able to spend more time with the dolphins and snorkeling rather than spending so much time getting there and back on a slow boat. So comparing them to us is pretty much apples to oranges. But some of them bill themselves as being just like us, but cheaper, when their trip does not even come close to being like ours. Their customers have no idea what they missed so they lose out and get what they pay for on the cheaper trip. Their trips consist of spending 5 or 10 minutes watching dolphins from the boat then they go to the reef to snorkel then take their crowd back to the dock and load up another large group of people for another trip. On our per person trips, depending on conditions and what our customers want to do, sometimes we watch and swim with different groups of dolphins for two hours or more before going to snorkel at the reef. No two trips are ever alike. On private charters we may spend even more time with different groups of dolphins. We try not to spend too much time with one particular group of dolphins so as not to get them agitated or feeling harassed so we move from group to group.
2. Several 6 passenger dolphin boats run out of Stock Island. That means they have an extra 30 minutes of ride time just to get to where we start at Key West Bight and 30 minutes back so an extra hour of boat riding that we don't have. That means we can get just as much done in 3 hours that takes them 4 hours. This is why we have 3 hour trips in the winter when it is colder. Our customers don't have that extra long ride back when they are wet and cold. It would be hard for you as a customer to know these facts if we were not telling you here because the Stock Island boats sure are not going to volunteer any of this information. During daylight savings time when it is warmer we run our per person trips for 4 hours just like the Stock Island boats do year round. This gives our customers a full extra hour of doing what they came to do--seeing the dolphins and snorkeling--rather than spending that hour just boat riding. Thus our trips are much more cost effective and time effective than the Stock Island boats.
3. A lot of propaganda has been put out by US government agencies alluding to the fact that Congress has passed a law saying it is not legal to swim in the same ocean with wild dolphins. No such law has ever been passed that says that. If they were to pass such a law the first thing they would have to do is close all the beaches in the United States to swimming. Obviously that is not going to happen. Most of our competition believes the government's propaganda and will not let you swim in the same ocean with wild dolphins from their boat. When mother nature is good to us and gives us the right conditions we still swim where the beautiful wild dolphins live. The clarity of the water is the most important factor in having a successful swim with the dolphins. If the water is too murky where the dolphins are it would be a waste of time to try to see them underwater so we would move on hoping to find some dolphins in water that has better visibility so we can have a good swim with them and see them better from the boat, too.
4. The dolphins you will be seeing on our tours are wild and free and happy and we want to keep them that way by not harassing them. Dolphins are a lot like humans in that they have different moods at different times and their moods are constantly changing. If they are feeding, sleeping, caring for their young, mating, etc., they may not want us in the area observing them or swimming in the area. But, then again, we might catch them in a playful mood and we will have a big time observing them from the boat or while swimming in the water. If they are not in a playful mood, they will just simply swim away or ignore us. Many times if the dolphins are not in a playful mood, we will go on to do other things like snorkeling on a coral reef or on a shallow water shipwreck or explore the back country mangrove areas and look for birds, turtles, rays, tropical fish, coral, sponges, etc. Then we will return a little later to the dolphins to see if they are in a playful mood. They are in playful moods quite frequently but there is no set pattern to it.
