Outliving your buddies

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I started diving in 1990, which now seems an impossibly long time ago, and still dive regularly with only one buddy from that era. Luckily I thoroughly enjoy diving with new divers. Their enthusiam is contagious.
 
I out lived or out lasted everyone I ever dove with and the organizations that I was certified with.
 
Lynne,

I have outdived many of my former buddies. So, I made sure that my Life Partner also liked to dive and we moved to Key Largo. We always have ScubaBoard peeps looking us up and wanting to go diving with us. Elena knows the island, the diving and the hotels better than many of the natives so she's a natural to help divers get situated. I just love it down here.
 
It is not just diving.

There is only one of my "biker" buddies that is still alive.
All of my hunting buddies have died.
My stock car racing friends have all crashed and burned (so to speak).
The guys I used to race motocross with have also perished.

I am only 51, but this makes me sound like I am 110 and out lived everyone. Maybe it does not pay to know me?

I have lost several friends and aqquainantecs to diving in the past few years. I am sure that either myself or my buddies will become "distant" in one way or another as time passes. I have already seen many of my dive buddies become less involved in the sport and many have stopped all together.

I think it is called "life" and I intend to enjoy it as long as I can.
 
My father-in-law is 95, and I have thought a number of times about what it would be like to outlive your friends and even your children. I'm not quite old enough to have that begin to happen to me . . . but I'm "outliving" my dive buddies.

I got certified seven years ago, and not too long afterwards, picked up two regular buddies. One rarely dives any more, and the other mostly teaches. I met a bunch of great people down in Monterey, and most of them aren't diving any more, either. I hooked up with some fantastic friends in Southern California, and still have one solid buddy I can visit and dive with there.

I've made some new friends locally, but I miss all the folks I used to know.

Anybody else dived long enough to go through this? It's rather disconcerting.

Losing a parent is hard enough. Losing one of our children or grandchildren would devastate me. We've had some friends die or get ill-health reports. My golf buddy and I were joking that we've known each other for 40 years and we're now starting to see friends and classmates die off. It's quite disconcerting, indeed.

The circle of life continues.


BTW, I did tell him I'd attend his funeral when he dies ......... unless I have a tee time. He heartily concurred.
 
Lynne, a lot of divers seem to be into the sport more for the social aspect of it, and less for the diving. At least, that is what I have witnessed up here in the PNW. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is those types of people who follow that 5-year dive career that you told me about one day (I believe the day we dove NW Island). They start diving, get a bunch of certs, then they train train train until they can take tech courses, then they take a few of those, and after 5 years they feel like they've seen it all!...and they stop. It is unfortunate. It makes finding long-term dive buddies--buddies who will be diving for decades to come--extremely difficult. Now, I have not hit the 5 year mark yet, but I can't imagine slowing down after that. There is FAR too much out there to see. If I get bored with local diving, will I quit diving? No. I will move. That is how I will keep going.
 
Kind of off topic, but in the search or screening for potential long term buddies, I think it's important that the diver has a hobby attached to the dives. Photography is a good one. Spearfishing.

You can only get so good at diving...pretty much. You train and do everything perfect....and then what? It's nice to just go....dive, but it goes from being something really special to more....a walk in the park.

The ones I see who really last are the photographers. Diving is a means to get to where they can take pictures. And...hunters.

Caves...well, you can keep pushing it like deep diving. but......
 
Lynne, I started the same time as you as well. Had one solid buddy (who moved, hopefully to return someday). He was 5 years younger than me. Most of the others at the shop that I've dived with are WAY younger than me, so it is VERY doubtfull I'll be the last one standing if you're talking age-wise.
 
Lynne, a lot of divers seem to be into the sport more for the social aspect of it, and less for the diving. At least, that is what I have witnessed up here in the PNW. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is those types of people who follow that 5-year dive career that you told me about one day (I believe the day we dove NW Island). They start diving, get a bunch of certs, then they train train train until they can take tech courses, then they take a few of those, and after 5 years they feel like they've seen it all!...and they stop. It is unfortunate. It makes finding long-term dive buddies--buddies who will be diving for decades to come--extremely difficult. Now, I have not hit the 5 year mark yet, but I can't imagine slowing down after that. There is FAR too much out there to see. If I get bored with local diving, will I quit diving? No. I will move. That is how I will keep going.
I have been diving since I was 8 or 9 years old non stop not board yet just had 3 great dives in Monterrey ca. today and I am 63
 
Love this thread, and the stories! And the best news? Since I posted this, I've made a dive date with one of the buddies I've "outlived" (the one who teaches all the time) and had a message exchange with my beloved first dive buddy, who I never see much any more. So maybe the thread should be entitled, "How to reanimate dive buddies?" :)
 
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