A letter from Evan Kraft, Captain of the Spirit of Adventure

[alantani]

Greetings 2025 Charter masters,

 I would like to personally thank you for your continued interest in the Spirit of Adventure.

Whether 2025 will be your first or 35th season on board the SOA, we appreciate your loyalty and
support. As most of you know, in July we were struck with the unexpected
loss of Captain Mike Keating. I think that we are all extremely
fortunate to have either known and fished with Mike, or simply be able
to appreciate the Spirit of Adventure operation that he and Annemarie
Keating built and left for us. He will be missed dearly.

 Denise and I have carefully crafted the 2025 fishing schedule
and have been able to accommodate dates for most of your requests, thank
you to those that have been especially flexible. We have a large amount
of requests for not only new charters but also additional trips for
existing groups. At this time, we are not offering new charter dates for
2025 unless we have cancellations, thank you for understanding.
    For the 2025 season, you will notice a significant increase in our
pricing for all lengths of trips. Hopefully this message may shed some
light on the subject. Spirit of Adventure Charters has always strived to
offer the highest value long range sportfishing trip at the lowest price
possible. Mike Keating was very good at accomplishing many things, but
one of the things he was best at was operating the Spirit of Adventure
Charter business very efficiently which would consistently result in one
of the lowest priced long range trips available. To this day, we take
great priority in maintaining a safe and comfortable vessel, an
outstanding and qualified captain and crew, and also complying with the
ever-so-changing regulations while still being able to provide a trip
priced at the lower end of the long range fleet (I encourage all to
observe the trip pricing of our fellow long range sportfishing
operations).
    Our industry is very complex with a very unique set of expenses that
not only grow in size but also in number every year. This past year we
have discreetly made construction modifications to the vessel to adhere
to the modern U.S. Coast Guard emergency escape regulations and this
upcoming winter we will be undertaking possibly the largest project for
the SOA to date. California will require the vessel to replace all 5
diesel engines and the U.S. Coast Guard will likely require the vessel
to modify the fuel tank's design to maintain it's legal range of trips.
In summary, no matter what, the Spirit of Adventure will be taking on
some inevitable added expenses. It is my goal to navigate these
uncharted economic waters with balance.
    I can assure you all that the SOA has, does and will always maintain
a low-end price point for our charters and passengers and I hope to
continue to provide a high-end service and experience. I realize that
the 2025 price increase will likely be outside of some anglers' budgets
but unfortunately it is unavoidable. The Spirit of Adventure Charter
business will continue to adapt to our changing industry in order stay
"afloat". Please let Denise know as soon as possible if you will be continuing your charter.
I hope to see you all next year.

Thank you,
Evan Kraft

[alantani]

for context, i think that this is my 29th year with the spirit of adventure, and my 12th year as a chartermaster.  i will be contacting all of the old crew first, starting with warren hamachi!!!!  then i will start filing in.  i will need to start collecting deposits very soon, as well.  i appreciate your patience.  alan

[Bill B]

I'm in!  Bill

[pjstevko]

I'm in for the July trip