Ecologic Divers: 2009

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Easton Beymer, "East" for short. Ian and Janey Paxton and my wife Sue and I are the new owners of Ecologic Divers. This is how we came to be here in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize, in Central America.

In 2005, Sue and I went on a cruise ship cruise to the Eastern Caribbean. On that cruise, we went on an excursion to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands where we had our first experience with snorkeling in a beautiful place called Trunk Bay. I was blown away with what I saw under water -- it was beautiful! We went back to our home in Boulder City, NV, and a month later, I was certified as a PADI Open Water Diver.

Several months after our cruise, Sue, and I decided to go on a sailing charter, and we booked a cabin with the Moorings, a very big sailboat chartering company. We got to the Moorings base in Roadtown, Tortola, British Virgin Islands late at night in a drenching thunderstorm. There to greet us was this big guy named Ian Paxton, and his partner, Janey Bauer, who were to be our crew on the sailing catamaran "Triple Dog Dare". This was to be the beginning of a rather amazing friendship. I had my first ocean dives with Ian on that charter, and he also introduced me to the infamous "Painkiller", a very toxic rum cocktail.

We all really hit it off together on the charter, and Sue and I had a wonderful time, so much so that we bought our catamaran "Infinity" several months later. We spent a considerable amount of time sailing around the BVI with our friends and family.

In the meantime, Ian and Janey continued to work for Moorings, but later went back to South Africa where they married and had their son Dylan. Ian started several businesses there, but had a yearning to return to the sea and the Caribbean. I had kept in touch with Ian and Janey over the years via Skype.

In the meantime, we had "Infinity" in charter with Voyage Charters in Soper's Hole on Tortola, BVI. We were not getting enough time aboard "Infinity" because she was always out on charter, so we decided to purchase a second catamaran, which we named "Impromptu" (so named because we rarely have a plan, and tend to make spur of the moment decisions).

Sue in particular wanted to have a crew on board "Impromptu", and we hired several skippers, which, putting it mildly, simply did not work out for us. In mid 2008, we decided to approach Ian and Janey about returning to the BVI to be the crew on "Impromptu". They accepted our offer, and they arrived in Soper's Hole last November. Our plan was to go sailing and explore the Caribbean. After several months of preparation, we set sail for St. Martin in the Eastern Caribbean in late February, 2009.

At about this time, the world wide recession really began taking hold, and the charter bookings for "Infinity" fell like a rock. Ian and I decided that we could do a better job of chartering her than Voyage Charters, and we began making plans to privately charter "Infinity".

As we were sailing to the islands of St. Martin, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, Bequia, Union, Grenada, and Bonaire, we at some point made the decision to sail to Panama to explore the Pearl Islands in the Pacific Ocean with the intent of starting a sailing charter company there. We decided to take "Infinity" out of charter with Voyage Charters, and hired a crew, Mark and Lee Maunder, to assume control of her.

We found four hardy souls who wanted an adventure, and in June, "Infinity" set sail from the BVI with her crew and guests aboard bound for Panama. Upon arrival, they then transited the Panama Canal in mid June, and made their way to Islas de Las Perlas or the Pearl Islands forty miles south of Panama City. We followed soon thereafter aboard "Impromptu", also transiting the Panama Canal in late June -- quite an exciting adventure in itself.

After spending several months in the Pearl Islands, we found that it was not feasible to start a charter company there. There was no infrastructure in the islands, no marinas or dock space, and no easy means of getting fuel and provisions. This lack of infrastructure was primarily caused by the fifteen foot tides which moved in and out of the Gulf of Panama every six hours. These big tides kept the water stirred up, and as a consequence, the diving was "not great" with generally poor visibility.

In early August, we moved our yachts to a bay outside of Panama City to do some provisioning. There "Infinity" was struck by lightning causing some $30,000 in damage to the electronic equipment aboard. All in all, things were not going well for us. The language barrier was also particularly problematic in that none of us spoke Spanish. It was mid August, and as things were not working out, we were all pretty depressed...

I had the small country of Belize in the back of my mind as an alternative destination if things did not work out in Panama. It took a bit of convincing on my part to get the crews to consider coming to Belize, primarily because they knew nothing about it. I had everyone do their Internet homework to see if coming here was a good idea, and we found to our surprise that it had world class diving. Wow! We all love to dive, and all of a sudden, we found Belize to not only be a great sailing destination, but also a great diving destination.

In September, while researching Belize on the Internet, I found that a dive center called "Ecologic Divers" was for sale in San Pedro, on Ambergris Caye, and I immediately contacted Ian. To say the least, he was very excited! In our planning of the sailing charter company, we had always wanted to start a dive center, and merge it into our sailing charter business. We had not planned to do the dive center first, but hey, we were flexible, and that's they way things worked out.

We immediately contacted the owners, and several days later, we flew to San Pedro to check out Ecologic Divers. The business seemed to be successful, it had a good reputation, it had an excellent staff, and the "numbers" looked good. We made the decision to make them an offer, and the owners accepted.

At this time, I was in Boulder City and the yachts were still outside Panama City. A Panama Canal transit ensued, followed by a haul out of both boats outside Colon, Panama. This was a horrible time for the crews as it was hot and muggy with lots of bugs. But the hulls needed to be cleaned and repainted with anti fouling paint, and "Infinity" was in particularly bad shape because of neglect by Voyage Charters. A month later, both boats, now in new condition, sailed to San Pedro.

On October 30, 2009, we closed on the sale of Ecologic Divers!

It is a little over a month later, we are doing well, and we are excited about the prospects for developing a successful business here in Belize.

Plus the diving is fantastic! Life is good...