Skookumchuck
Contributor
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.
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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.
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 63Lynne, 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.