I just got back from a week trip down in Key West with the family. We spent a lot of time diving, snorkeling, site seeing, and diving. I had my first encounter with underwater with both a nurse shark and reef shark. Scary, but very fun.
The whole week we were down there, we noticed that the locals were not the most hospitable. In talking with them, it seems as if tourism is down considerably, and they are feeling the pain from less dollars being injected into their local economy. Interestingly, it seemed as if there were large numbers of European tourists, probably due to the falling dollar. Certainly the increase in fuel costs are hurting all the local boaters who have seen their costs driven up while the amount they can charge tourists has not been able to increase proportionally.
For example, we went out with Capt Sheri at Wild About Dolphins and she told us her cost per trip in terms of fuel has increased from ~$30 to ~$75. Basically that is $90 a day out of her pocket and into Exxon’s. Just shows how the fuel costs are hurting everyone…
