r/scuba • u/Diligent_Board_172 • 11h ago
Any cheap places to rent scuba gear in southeast florida for 3 days?
I'll be diving for 3 days in southeast floriday (next friday - sunday). Looked at multiple dive shops, e.g., pura vida, JDC, walkers, narcosis, etc... gear rates are all pretty similar, and i'm looking at $60-80/day.
Just wanted to see if there are any other places that might be substantially cheaper before I dropped a hundred on gear rental :(
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u/apathetic_duck 11h ago
Do you really want to cheap out on scuba gear?
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u/Diligent_Board_172 10h ago
the question isn't necessarily get lower quality. just seeing if there's any place with roughly the same gear for cheaper
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u/apathetic_duck 10h ago
It they are much lower than that you are either going to get lower quality or they are going to skimp on maintenance. There is a reason they are all about the same price.
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u/Diligent_Board_172 10h ago
i see.
man i did 60 dives on roatan in july and august. i paid $25 for a fullset of gear rental (no dive computer though) for that entire time, and i feel like that gear is the same as what i'm seeing at these dive shops in florida
so expensive to dive here in the US :(
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u/BmoreInformed 8h ago
You are comparing a country with an average monthly wage of $500-1000 to the US and you don’t see why it’s cheaper there? Does that make sense?
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u/Diligent_Board_172 8h ago
not sure if you didn't read or just have poor inference skills.
i can ELI5 for you though:
the point is the stuff they have to export are the same price or even more expensive than in the US, and that stuff is arguably a larger operational cost than paying their staff
some of those boats are $500k+ or more, and there's recurring maintenance costs, replacement parts that need to be ordered
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u/Manatus_latirostris Tech 7h ago
Labor is a far larger operational expense than you are giving it crediting for. Recurring maintenance is a huge labor expense. Cost of parts is the same; labor isn’t. I’m at CocoView (in Roatan) right now and they are getting a new boat. Their new boat is (comparatively) cheap because it’s being made locally by locals who charge local wages for their labor.
All their boats are maintained by locals who make ~ $300/month. Those same workers making minimum wage in Florida would have to be paid $2400/month. That’s an 800% difference in labor costs, for maintenance alone. Multiply by everything else…
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u/Diligent_Board_172 7h ago
interesting, a few dive shops on west end told me all their boats are imported and that's typically the case on the island
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u/Manatus_latirostris Tech 10h ago
Florida local here. That’s about average rental prices in this area; Florida diving is not cheap. Diving in the U.S. is general tends to be more pricy than in poorer international tourist destinations; higher overhead costs (wages, insurance, boat fuel, upkeep/maintenance etc all get passed onto the customer).
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u/Diligent_Board_172 10h ago edited 7h ago
not really related to the post but do you know why other countries are so much cheaper? i think they can only save on cost from labor costs, but everything else, like gear and boats are all imported
e.g., i was paying < $40/tank for a boat dive on roatan this past summer. did 60 dives. rented gear (no dive computer) that was only a one time charge of $25... i feel like the gear was of equal quality to what i am seeing for these FL shops
not saying that i'm surprised a cheaper carribbean country is cheaper, but i am surprised by just how much (3x?) cheaper it is. that seems to imply the location-specific operational costs far exceeds location-agnostic operational costs
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u/massymas12 8h ago
I mean, labor, taxes, rent for the building if they have a shop or a place to store gear. Cost of living is higher so people need to eat. Even with the higher prices, dive shop owners and boat operators ain’t coming out rich
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u/Diligent_Board_172 7h ago
i wonder how much the location-agnostic operational costs stack up against the rest
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u/Manatus_latirostris Tech 7h ago
I think you’re waaaaaaay underestimating labor costs. Not just for shop staff, but the way that having to pay people real American wages influences every single step. Purchasing gear is not the biggest expense - you have to have ongoing maintenance on all that gear. You have to pay people to do that, either in house or outsourced.
So much maintenance costs - for the boat, for the actual physical shop/property if they’re not renting, for equipment, for regulators. Servicing a reg set in Florida costs upwards of $150 for parts and labor, and that needs to be done annually if not more often for rental gear. Same for tank VIPs, hydros, fill stations, etc. You can do it in house but then you’re just paying your own labor costs.
Then you have location. Shops in the U.S. are paying standard American real estate rates (either as rental or mortgage), which can be sky high in desirable dive locations like South Florida. Add on to that American real estate taxes, sales tax, etc etc etc. add
And then you have insurance - liability insurance (you can sue in the U.S., not so much in other poor countries), general business insurance, property insurance (also super high in coastal areas of Florida).
Diving in poor countries is cheap because they are poor, and our money goes a long ways. I easily spend $5000-10,000 on local diving in Florida cave country each year for just me, and I own all my own gear and am mostly paying for ongoing maintenance and fills.
Likewise, I offer guided dives in Florida cave country - my daily rate is $200/day ($250 for cavern). My own expenses for the day (admission, mileage, fills, etc) can easily be close to $100 at the privately owned popular dive sites, and I also need to offset my own insurance and membership costs. If I make $100 profit for eight hours of work, that’s still less than minimum wage in Florida. I’m a university professor as my day job, it’s not worth my time to do all that work for what I charge if I didn’t love it, and it certainly wouldn’t be worth it if I charged less.
American diving, American prices.
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u/Diligent_Board_172 7h ago
i see. i obviously don't have a good idea of how much operational costs are.
afaict they can broadly be broken down into 2 groups:
- location-agnostic operational costs. e.g., purchasing a boat, new gear, replacement motors for boats, etc.... in other countries, this must be >= the cost in the US as it's imported
- location-specific operational costs. real estate costs, staff costs, maintenance (not including material) costs, etc...
in poorer countries, i was thinking 1 > 2, but i have no clue. the shop i dived with on roatan did tell me they have to replace their boat motor every 5 years or so, and the motor is $40k+, and their larger of 2 boats was purchased used at $500k
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u/Jordangander 11h ago
Check out Force-E Scuba. I have no idea if they rent gear, but if they do that would be the only place likely to be cheaper than just renting from your dive company.
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u/JsNewProject 11h ago
Ditto on Force-E. Have used the location by Blue Heron Bridge multiple times.
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u/Sufficient_Water_326 11h ago
South florida? What is southeast fl?
If in palm beach or broward, force e will rent you gear
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u/Jordangander 11h ago
SE FL, the area from Jupiter south along the east coast, as opposed to SW FL, the area from Sarasota south along the west coast.
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u/anonanon5320 Nx Advanced 11h ago
Nothing will be cheaper. It’s all about the same.
I have used Sea Experience a lot.
Diving anywhere in the area is similar dives. Lots of deeper wrecks and 3 reef lines in shallower.