Budgeting Your Bottom Time: Undercurrent 07/2025

Budgeting Your Bottom Time

or is it the cost per tank?

from the July, 2025 issue of Undercurrent

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After our Roatan Aggressor travel writer returned, he wrote to Undercurrent saying that Caribbean liveaboard dive trips, especially when coming from the U.S., can be the least expensive form of international dive travel when measured as cost per dive. It's especially true if you make as many dives per week as possible and book discounted weeks offered when the sailing date is approaching and bunks are unfilled....

"With this approach, the cost per dive can be in the low $100 range. Resorts generally cost more than a liveaboard because they typically offer three dives daily in their packages. My estimated cost per dive for the Roatan Aggressor was about $120. Since airfare is a significant factor, more remote dive trips can run upwards of $400 or more per tank when airfare for a 12,000-mile trip is counted. Think about that!"

When I got certified in the 1980s, the choices were slim for liveaboards. I dived from a renovated fishing boat in Belize, a little more comfortable one in the Sea of Cortez, and functional ships with rows of bunk beds to Southern California's Channel Islands. But today, the choice of boats varies from true luxury to less than luxe, though most have excellent meals and plenty of room to work on your camera. Many have staterooms, and some even have hot tubs.

"Undercurrent subscribers are among the more serious divers on the planet, and even three dives a day are not enough for many."

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