WtF: The Decline in Scuba Participation

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There are plenty of cogent points made on this thread, however, I do think John's main point is being overlooked. In order to make the work worth the fun for most people, states John's thesis, the reef needs to be spectacular. Reefs are declining worldwide and climate change is the culprit.

The same equation goes for alpine skiing. People often travel far and spend lots of money for that 1 big ski trip a year "out west." If the skiing is only average or worse, the food and wine better be worth 3 Michelin stars. Climate change is impacting the ski industry, as well.
 
I was able to open the PDF and take a look.
I had no idea it was that bad in all the locations @boulderjohn. The title WtF I misconstrued as WTF!, however both work in this case.

I’ve never been a vacation diver for exception of Hawaii a few times and the GBR once back in 2000.
It was almost too much like a persons lavish aquarium to me, almost unreal in many ways. It was spectacular in so many ways but the rest of the tourists on the boat began to wear me down and became a drag just trying fight for space.
I enjoyed Hawaii but I began to get bored after about 5 dives, It became monotonous.
I thought even then that the cost to enjoyment ratio was a bit off and knew then that my far flung dive vacation career was going to be limited.
I can’t imagine what it is now over 20 years later. People tell me that where we were in the GBR then is almost non existent now.

If I only had dived in all the locations you mentioned @boulderjohn I can tell you that I would have found another hobby besides scuba long ago because there would be no way I could afford all the time and money and domestic logistics to go all the places you have been. I’m just damn glad I have this here otherwise diving would have never happened for me. I got into scuba from freediving for abalone. For me it was close proximity to the ocean that got me involved and is what keeps me involved.

To be honest, I enjoy my local diving more than I enjoyed the few far flung places I have been considering all the factors.
Cold doesn’t affect my attitude or physical enjoyment of diving. To me it’s the curiosity and the adventure that keep me going. The fresh seafood helps too. If I lived where you live I would probably dive California more than other places, and in fact I would probably choose to go right where I dive now more than suffering all the travel hassles to go to the exotic locations simply because of value, accessibility, the ability to hunt and gather, and the lack of crowds. In fact many people that I know who dive here say the same thing, that they felt privileged to be able to go to exotic locations but overall they like what we have here the best.
There is a local dive culture here that has been around since the 1950’s just like SoCal, except more hardcore. It was the excitement of the hunt and the rugged coastline that inspired many to brave the cold and rough waters of the north coast and still does to this day.

like I said, I have no idea what it’s like outside of my Norcal world because I don’t have the opportunity to get out much and haven’t for many years. It’s sad that the warm coral world is declining. I was actually looking forward to maybe getting out more and giving it another shot; start to travel in semi retirement but it sounds like that might not be an option now. That’s too bad.

As far as diver participation dropping, yeah It’s true overall and for the tropical places maybe even more. It’s just to expensive and too big of a hassle for the struggling average person now.
In my location there has never been a huge participation level to start with. It takes a special person who is dedicated to the sport beyond just being a dabbler who want’s to look at pretty fishes and be warm to partake in the cold and crappy conditions where I dive.
People come and go. The hardcore’s seem to stay and continue on because they have reasons to stick with it beyond just the basic warm water recreational minset of everything needing to be perfect or they won’t do it.
 
When I was struck with menopause I bought another sports car, more dive gear, and went diving more
 
Diving's one of those pastimes where the more you put in, the more you get out. Whilst trite, the old adage "the more you practice, the easier it gets" is extremely applicable.

Until we're allowed to travel again - 2024? - we're stuck diving locally. This will probably mean diving going through a nadir until it picks up once we're allowed to go to remote locations again.
 
John,

As always, your writing makes me think. Thanks. I really want to dive with and maybe take a course from you some time when you're in Florida.

I think one issue affecting both the industry and the environment is the comparatively small number of sites that operators visit over and over again at major diving destinations.

Except for wrecks, I don't understand why everybody throngs to the same GPS coordinates and tramples those spots hard when the whole shallow part of the ocean is worth diving.

Dramatic reefs, spires, and underwater topography are cool, but they are just a tiny portion of the ocean that's accessible to divers. We need to encourage divers to believe that any time under water is worthwhile and fun.

I've attached a video taken by a customer a few weeks ago. He and his lovely family had booked what we thought was a half-day rod-and-reel fishing charter but he thought was a combination fishing and diving trip. We didn't find out about his expectations until we had already chosen our fishing spots, which were not our usual recreational or spearfishing dive spots. But they are delightful people and we aim to please, so we made the dives happen.

Note that there is absolutely nothing special about the bottom contour: just a few patches of limestone sticking out of the sandy coastal plain. But it is still fascinating habitat and well worth diving.

In the course of two dives, this gentleman had the nice encounter with a turtle you see in the video, he saw the full range of fish we usually catch while bottom fishing, and we found an octopus. Nobody dives these sites because the geology isn't awe-inspiring, but they still afforded us a delightfully relaxing and wondrous time under water. There are thousands and thousands of places like this that are fun to dive and give divers a chance to say they've been somewhere very few people have seen. Not every tourist has to see the same stuff.

My point is that the "F" in the WtF ratio doesn't demand seventh-wonder-of-the-world topography to qualify as "F." It can just be normal ocean environments. And there enough zillion square miles of normal habitat for us all to experience the wonder of seeing ocean critters in their natural environment without pummeling the most visually dramatic sites into a state of ruin. We can take pressure off some of these sites by spreading out a bit. Granted, that's no answer to the macro issues like pollution, but it's something we can do to at least not make things worse quite as fast.
 
John, a thoughtful article. Here in Sydney, the number of divers has plunged dramatically over the past 30 years even though the population has increased by close to 40%. Dive shops have closed, there were three in the area I live, now none. The same applies throughout New South Wales, so many shops closed.

This is despite the fact (well I reckon it is fact) that the underwater environment in Sydney and NSW is far, far better than when I first dived in 1988. There is much better sponge and fishlife on reefs in Sydney, there are a few places where we now see grey nurse sharks all the time, there are seals on dives, we see whales when out diving. None of this was seen in 1988.

The same applies for NSW, much better diving at places like the Solitary Islands, Fish Rock, Forster and Byron Bay. More sharks, more fish (thanks to marine reserves).

Our dive club has a much bigger membership than 1990s, but per person, far less active. We have a core of (older) members who dive every week or even multiple times a week. The younger divers join and after a few years disappear. Most of my closest dive buddies and friends have been members for 20 or more years.

Additionally, it seems that younger people do not appear to commit to one recreational activity and flit from one to another to another to another. Like you said, tennis and golf also seem to be suffering here, although gold appears to be coping much better than scuba diving or tennis.

As to the GBR, there are still spots that are amazing. The problem is that most of the liveaboard dive boats have also disappeared and the very few remaining ones seem more interested in money than giving a good experience. I went on a boat in 2018 to reefs that were pristine and had amazing fishlife. That boat is the only one that goes there. This year I am going on it again to the Yongala (the only liveaboard boat that goes there now) and then the reefs out east of the wreck. I did this back in 2016 and it was simply fantastic.

My view is that the death of diving is related to a few things. First, the inability of dive shops to come to terms with the internet, so kept trying to charge top dollar for gear when it could be purchased so much cheaper online. Rather than also go online, they stayed the same and in the end, died. The remaining ones no longer stock much gear, so even if you want to buy something, you end up waiting longer than an online order to get it (at bigger cost). Air fills also have increased in price so much more than inflation. In our club, we now have at least 20 members with their own compressors (also because no dive shops nearby).

I do not know what the answer is. In our club we have tried to get the younger members to come to meetings and events and continually have no success. Whereas I was happy to dive and socialise with members more than 20 years older than me, today's youngsters do not appear to want to do this.
 
I found the pdf interesting, but I do think that as mentioned by other posters, lots of activities wax and wane in popularity over the years. Personally, I think that scuba is suffering because of the cost barrier. Younger people interested in the ocean can pick up free diving for much less money and it has the allure of being risky and edgy. Scuba diving is expensive and is a sport of the older and affluent.

For me personally, I think that Tursiops hit on why I dive. For me, almost any time spent underwater is time spent in the "zone" - I did a work dive yesterday where I spent most of the dive kneeling in one spot (no hovering in this habitat as there is no room) counting fish. As I was sitting there I realized that I could not have been any happier.

I have no solution for the issue of declining numbers of divers and am not sure that it is even bad, but maybe it really is a wheel of time thing. Golf was mentioned above as a declining sport, but the pandemic has been very, very good to the golf industry. Their only question is how they can sustain the boom post pandemic.

Jackie
 
I’ve never dived the tropics much, never the same place a decade apart to witness any decline. My chilly Vancouver Island waters seem as healthy as ever though. Maybe even more spectacular, though maybe that’s me being more observant! This current crisis will inevitably see a lot of business fail, as with other travel-related industries, time will tell if new ones come back in a slightly different form afterwards. Suspect drysuit diving has a future though...
 
I fell in love with diving during a visit to Cozumel in 1979 and at that time marine life was incredibly abundant. Having a young family meant my opportunities for diving were pretty limited and by the time my children were teenagers and became interested in scuba I found reef diving to be somewhat disappointing compared to my experience in 1979. Fortunately I live in Toronto and found that wreck diving was even more interesting than warm water diving and most of my diving is now in the Great Lakes and the East and West coasts of Canada. Possibly because of the Covid pandemic I am seeing a bit of an increase in interest in cold water diving but opportunities are limited because of the various lockdowns.
 
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