Average age of divers today???

[BRS]

78. Just passed 200 dives in Bonaire (my seventh trip there).

 

[faantastic]

I'm 26 and just certified for OW in May. My fiance is 24 and water-willing should be certified OW by the end of June. Most of the divers at our LDS are 40+ but no problem helping us newer divers.

Rough guess would be that the initial cost for us to do the classes + fins/mask/hood/gloves/boots ran us about $1500 with classes included. Mind you we did go with scubapro Novas after a DM friend of ours raved and raved and raved...

Not sure if they are worth it when I'm still working on hovering and comfort at 20 ft down!

 

[SaltyPirateBastard]

Two things to consider here. There are a lot of young divers and young certified individuals. They won't be out on the boat as often as the more senior crowd, because they don't have the time/money. They do dive when they get the opportunity. Would the average age of currently working Divemasters be younger than the average diver?

Secondly, this poll will only reflect average age of divers on ScubaBoard.com. If a similar poll were conducted on facebook, I wouldn't be surprised if the average results were lower than the ones we will see here.

 

[under water]

Some people can get so weird over a comment and not seem to read it thoroughly. As "most" vacation divers I can only assume that one gets to go on vacation once maybe twice a year in that maybe making 2-4 dives. If you log 2-4 dives a year IMO you lose basic skills this I think are needed for safe diving. If you "need" a DM in the water with you because you don't feel safe then I don't think of one as a real diver.

You get "60" dives a year thats more than a lot of divers I know.
Just wondering what do you do that allows you to get 60 dives on vacation every year?

3 weeks vacation = 15 to 21 diving days * 3 or 4 dives per day = 45 to 84 dives.
Where is the mystery?
Many of us who go on diving vacations go to dive-dive-dive. Heck, 1 week on a live-aboard = 20-25 dives easy.

 

[bogey]

68 male

 

[bogey]

started at 65 and out of shape. now going on 68 and still out of shape but can't wait for my next Keys trip. ( i pick and choose the dives i'm comfortable with.) anyone want to start a geriatric dive club ?

 

[under water]

started at 65 and out of shape. now going on 68 and still out of shape but can't wait for my next Keys trip. ( i pick and choose the dives i'm comfortable with.) anyone want to start a geriatric dive club ?

Like the Grumpy Old Divers Forum? Grumpy Old Divers

 

[ColoDale]

Age 46. I can get 60 dives per year on dedicated dive trips since I have been working long enough to build up vacation weeks. When I was younger the problem was vacation time and money (my wife dives as well). Now it's generally just money and we spend more for locations we want to go to instead of where the deal is and for longer periods of time.

 

[Hoomi]

That's because the average age of the people that can afford to dive, go places and dive, is 40's+.

Coming to this topic late, but I'm going to chime in on the same note as this one.

Almost three years ago, my wife and I were watching "Fool's Gold" on DVD. I've long quipped that when I have a best-selling novel, I'm going to buy a sailboat. Watching the movie, my wife commented that, when I get a sailboat, she wanted to learn scuba. I thought, "Hey! I've always wanted to learn scuba, also!"

We'd been married for 28 years at that point, and never knew that the other wanted to learn diving. It wasn't that we didn't talk about things. It was just that, for most of that 28 years, we'd been focused on raising kids and balancing the household budget, and something like scuba would never have fit, let alone any travel to nice locations for scuba.

Our kids are grown up now, and while we're by no means wealthy, our budget does allow for more recreational spending than it did when the kids were little. I was 48 (about a month away from 49) when we got our OW cert, and my wife was 46.

 

[MrsBBC]

As many posters have said; time, money and logistics

Thanks to my dad, I qualified in the UK when I was 15, he was .... 50something and he qualified with me.
We completed our AOW and clocked up about 25 dives, half in cold water, half in warm.

For our open water, once a week we had to drive to town for a classroom session, then drive out of town to the hired pool, pub for the debrief, for... 5 weeks? then we had 1 or 2 qualifying weekends at the coast (a lengthy drive, full kit hire, accommodation, food, boat fuel, cylinder fills) It's not really affordable or logistical for most 15 year olds and wasn't really affordable for my dad.

It wasn't until I was 19 that I made it past 25 to 100 plus dives (Gap yeeeaar)

And it wasn't until I graduated and got a job 2 years ago that I could afford the appropriate gear for UK diving, and upgrade my original kit to what I should have bought years a ago, but didnt know better/could not afford.
I am also lucky that in my line of work I get a lot of time off, but it is sporadic and inconsistent, so I am unreliable and of little use to my local dive club at present. I am also therefore making more warm water dives abroad than I am cold water dives at home even though I am keen to make the move to doubles for much of my UK diving.

Nic

P.S. I am 25 and the youngest member of my BSAC dive club