Can spiders crawl past my Flash?

[TCJeter]

As an intermediate web designer, I have a question pertaining to links. This could fit into a few forum categories, but I'll give it a go here....

In a recent web project (www.exploretours.com), I created the navigation menu in Flash. Knowing that this is not the best option, I still wanted it to have the dynamic element of changing the content depending on the page you are viewing. As far as links go, I have added a link (in HTML) from every vital submenu page to every other submenu page.



Example:

<link href="http://www.exploretours.com/Cruises/cruises_intro.html" id="Link1" title="Cruises">

<link href="http://www.exploretours.com/Catch/catch_intro.html" id="Link2" title="Fishing">

<link href="http://www.exploretours.com/Day/day_intro.html" id="Link3" title="Day Tours">

etc., etc., etc.......


Case in point: Is this flash menu spider-friendly, just as it would be in straight HTML, or have I crippled the ability of search engines to effectively crawl the site?? The argument I am faced with is the marketing directors not wanting to pay out for "pay-per-click" listings until the menu is HTML. They assume the spiders cannot properly crawl the site because of a few articles they have read about Flash not being seen, or sites with Flash being ignored altogether, by search engines.
The site is mostly HTML. Only the menu system is in Flash. Won't the links I put in (like using Dreamweaver's "insert link" function in the Head options) direct the spider to the continuing pages?
I thought this was a way to override any indexing on the site, because these elements reside in the "head" part of the document. ?

Thanks for your responses.
-TC

[Hierophant]

Please do not double post...

http://www.sitepointforums.com/showt...threadid=64627