How many of you love diving with your spouse?

[manni-yunk]

I love diving with my wife. She wont dive locally so we dont get to do it much but when we travel I beg her to dive with me!! We are going to Bermuda this summer for a work trip and she's already said she's diving there. Whenever we are fortunate enough to get to the carribean, she dives and I love it.


The issue I have is that since she dives so infrequently, her confidence isnt there so she is apprehensive. I think before the Bermuda trip i will get her into a refresher course so that by the time we get to Bermuda, she is more confident.

Im also going to get her to dive NC this summer. She does enjoy diving very much, but only the warm, clear dives. She thinks Im nuts for the local diving I do.

 

[videofly]

I love diving with my wife as we do, diving with our children. My wife would be content only diving in 30 to 40 foot warm, clear, water filled with colorful life forms. I will take what I can get. Even though we are close buddies in the water, we each dive with a large amount of redundant gear. We look forward to diving being the "icing on the cake" when it comes to travel plans.

 

[drrich2]

One issue I see in some postings, and in my own experience, is that in many couples where both dive, one will be a more avid diver than the other. Other time, this will lead to greater personal investment in diving - experience, formal course work, online research, expansion into deeper or otherwise more demanding diving. Doesn't mean they can't dive together, but either it'll be a fraction of total dives, or the more avid diver must 'hold back.'

Not unlike trip planning with a non-diving spouse where you want to dive 6 days in Bonaire, but your spouse wants more couple time and a sandy beach, so you end up getting 6 - 10 dives elsewhere (or 2 - 4 on a cruise) instead of 20+ in Bonaire. That said, accommodating non-diving family has led me to experience diving a destination I might not've gotten in otherwise.

Richard.

 

[Pinecube]

My wife and I just got into diving recently and, at least in the near future, I can't see myself diving with anyone else. We have a blast! We seem to have different interests on what type of diving we might be getting into in the future but for now we're just having fun.

One of these days I'll learn her secret of conserving air... I swear it's like she holds her breath for the entire dive!

 

[manni-yunk]

One issue I see in some postings, and in my own experience, is that in many couples where both dive, one will be a more avid diver than the other. Other time, this will lead to greater personal investment in diving - experience, formal course work, online research, expansion into deeper or otherwise more demanding diving. Doesn't mean they can't dive together, but either it'll be a fraction of total dives, or the more avid diver must 'hold back.'

Not unlike trip planning with a non-diving spouse where you want to dive 6 days in Bonaire, but your spouse wants more couple time and a sandy beach, so you end up getting 6 - 10 dives elsewhere (or 2 - 4 on a cruise) instead of 20+ in Bonaire. That said, accommodating non-diving family has led me to experience diving a destination I might not've gotten in otherwise.

Richard.

Completely true, but worth it. When we travel, would I rather explore the deeper, lessor seen wrecks - SURE. Would I rather not stick to NDLs and enjoy seeing more of the wreck/reef - Sure.


But Holding back to get to enjoy diving with her is completely worth it. I keep to dive deeper and longer all the time. In fact, if she would start to local dive, I would probably not do much tech diving for a while just to dive with her.

 

[GW06]

I loved diving with my wife. We trained together, bought gear together, traveled together, dove 96 times together, and shared the most amazing adventures of our lives. It was wonderful! Unfortunately, she decided to move on from our marriage and I lost the only dive buddy I ever had. I have gone diving since then without her, but I have to say it isn't nearly as much fun. The post-dive debrief with my instant buddies just doesn't have the same emotional impact as sharing the experience with someone who really matters to you. Additionally, I wonder if I ran into trouble underwater, would they be as interested/trustworthy/concerned in helping me as she was? I doubt it.

But I'm plugging along, continuing to dive in the hopes that one day I might find a new dive buddy who really will be a true buddy. It would make diving a lot more satisfying.

 

[Lorenzoid]

One issue I see in some postings, and in my own experience, is that in many couples where both dive, one will be a more avid diver than the other. Other time, this will lead to greater personal investment in diving - experience, formal course work, online research, expansion into deeper or otherwise more demanding diving. Doesn't mean they can't dive together, but either it'll be a fraction of total dives, or the more avid diver must 'hold back.'

My wife and I seem to be discovering aspects of diving about which we are both equally avid. As we dive more, I think less about the aspects of diving we used to approach differently and more about the common interests we're finding. I used to think I wanted to learn to dive deeper, longer, etc. But we've both discovered we have a passion for macro life, and now I'd rather search for nudibranchs than sharks. I once might have thought my wife would never want to do a 2-hour dive, but now I know that if the dive were focused on macro stuff in 15 feet of water, she would be all over it. We have also discovered we both simply enjoy learning more about diving. We have long known we both enjoy learning new things, but it only recently occurred to us that taking diving-related classes together can be really fun, regardless of whether we end up expanding our diving as a result. Maybe we're just education junkies. But our interest is not limited to classroom education; we are increasingly spending time poring over the ID books and learning the names of marine life. Together identifying what we saw on a dive seems to be a new phase in our diving. So, with respect to those aspects of diving that we seem to both enjoy, I think we are just as avid divers as each other.

 

[KathyV]

My husband and I have been diving together for over 30 years and so far we are equally avid and well-matched. As we get older there may be health issues that could make it more difficult for one or the other of us to dive, so we will have to see how that works out. But I think that if one of us has to stop diving the other will also retire from the sport.

If one spouse is willing but less eager than the other - my advice is to be patient and give it time. We took a YMCA pool course to get trained and I hated it. The big problem was that I couldn't see anything because I couldn't wear my contacts since we were constantly ditching and donning and taking off our masks. We also took the class during January in Chicago - so I was freezing the whole time. But after I had a few dives in the warm waters of Florida and I could see; I started to feel comfortable and began to really like it a lot!

I was also less comfortable in the water than my husband. He was on the swim team in high school but I had to take an "adult learn to swim" class before learning to dive. The first class was "introduction to water" and we all lined up at the shallow end of the pool and practiced putting our faces into the water! It took some time for me to feel as comfortable as him but he was patient and I stuck with it and soon I began to enjoy swimming and diving.

One of the reasons we started diving was because it gave us a chance to spend time together doing something special. We are just warm-water OW vacation divers. We used to do 2 trips a year when we were younger but now we only do 1 trip per year. But we love visiting beautiful, exotic, warm places on the ocean, and diving.

So far we have done almost 600 dives and we have done every one of them as buddies. If one of us has ear problems or isn't feeling well then the other one sits out too - because we want to spend time together - we work long hours and this is our chance to relax and enjoy each other's company.

Sticking to the "both or neither" promise has been difficult at times, like on a liveaboard when there is plenty of great diving available and not much else to do. And I remember a trip to Bonaire when my husband had a head cold and ear problems and couldn't dive most of the week. I spoke with the dive operator and asked if we could "get a rain check on our pre-paid shore/boat dives so that we could come back later" and he told me "Your husband can have one but not you, because you are still healthy and able to dive!" He didn't understand when I said that I didn't want to dive without my buddy.

There have been many other activities and hobbies that one of us liked but the other didn't - but I am glad that we've agreed about diving - it has given us a lot of good times and great memories. And I am happy that I stuck with because I would have missed many wonderful experiences and the opportunity to share them with my husband.

 

[mikeb21072]

My wife is my dive buddy, and she is in to diving as much as I am. We are not the "holding hands" buddies as some, due to she is taking still photos and I am shooting video with my GoPro. It works for us and that is what matters. We are warm water divers, but we are going to try Dutch Springs this year for some local diving, whereas before, our local diving was flying to Key Largo or the Cayman's. We have managed to take around 6 dive trips a year, and wish would could dive a lot more frequently.

Mike

 

[kr2y5]

I really love diving with my wife, and my wife loves having dived with me, she just does not love going for a dive, especially in sub-80F water...