Question How old are you and how long certified? Poll- please take part!

[scubadada]

....and let's not forget fiddling with the horizontal and vertical rheostats in the back of the TV to get that better picture. However, we had to wait at least 5 minutes for the TV to warm up before doing that.

How about going to the drugstore to use the tube tester and buy new tubes when your TV went on the fritz?

This thread has brought back memories

 

[boulderjohn]

 

[drrich2]

Easy. Just start a poll asking people who don't dive any more how old they are and why they quit.

It's not a poll, but we do have one source of periodic anecdotes - the self-reports of divers re-entering the spot after long absences, noted in the introductions section of ScubaBoard.

A frequently cited reason is having and raising kids. People get certified, have fun, then the collective demands of 'adulting' (raising kids, maintaining a career and marriage) crowd scuba diving out. When the kids grow up and move on, there's more time and money to 'play.'

An occasionally cited reason is moving away from diving. Someone might live in or near a coastal area conducive to good local diving, then more far from it, leaving then with a choice of expensive travel dive vacations, diving locally in less optimal conditions (e.g.: quarries, a lake) or giving it up.

 

[Scott G. Bonser]

What is this "retire" word you speak of?

I figure I'm working until the bitter end. In fact, I predict the messy end with the EMT service pumping on my chest, and someone saying "Think you could get him to sign this?". I secretly hope it is an aneurism, and it is messy for them to clean up in my office....

If I have to stick it out that long, someone is going to have to pay the price for it....

(I hope people recognize my dark humor/sarcasm here)

Yes, I appreciate ‘deadpan’ humor. I try to keep co-workers, dive partners, even complete strangers in’stitches’ so to say,
giantfroginthepool
Scott G. Bonser

 

[Scott G. Bonser]

It's not a poll, but we do have one source of periodic anecdotes - the self-reports of divers re-entering the spot after long absences, noted in the introductions section of ScubaBoard.

A frequently cited reason is having and raising kids. People get certified, have fun, then the collective demands of 'adulting' (raising kids, maintaining a career and marriage) crowd scuba diving out. When the kids grow up and move on, there's more time and money to 'play.'

An occasionally cited reason is moving away from diving. Someone might live in or near a coastal area conducive to good local diving, then more far from it, leaving then with a choice of expensive travel dive vacations, diving locally in less optimal conditions (e.g.: quarries, a lake) or giving it up.

My response… get access to a pool environment YOU can control. Next, purchase a ‘nice‘ speargun, I have some nice pneumatic and spring powered ones and some blunt rubber archery points. Remove fishing Point and fashion a bushing for the point-end and add the blunt point. …keeps pools from getting holes or concrete chips. Then make a nice target from a weight, line and a partially air-filled milk jug…which can be replaced easily after you trash it good and it no longer floats mid-water. Swim around or plant yourself on the bottom after loading and just ‘nail’ your target and stress away. You’ll stay in diving practice and get good at catching ‘choice’ fish for dinner. Even if you don’t want to kill the fish, it’s a ‘Cool’ skill to have. & You‘ll be ready for that next vacay resort dive on a nice reef.

giantfroginthepool
Scott G. Bonser

 

[Scott G. Bonser]

maybe he should have said he remembered getting up to change the (relatively few) channels, to adjust the volume or move the rabbit ears to better the picture......

Or he knows what a test pattern is...

I can relate….born in ‘59. First introduced to SCUBA in ‘75, cert. Y and NASDS in ‘77 and PADI in ’81…DM in 84.
giantfroginthepool
Scott G. Bonser, Harrellsville, NC

 

[Scott G. Bonser]

Hanging on to 56 for a few more weeks - about 350 dives since getting certified when I was 30 (live in landlocked Kansas City).

Check out my earlier post with the speargun In the pool or clear water area and blunt points and a milk jug on a line mid-water. Great stress relief and practice with spearfishing skill although you have to go to salt water to spearfish.
giantfroginthepool
scott G. Bo ser, Harrellsville, NC

 

[Scott G. Bonser]

Funny thing, I have been quite actively diving since 1997. I went through a more serious photography phase, a video phase, a lobstering phase, a Lionfish elimination phase, and a spearfishing phase. Ultimately, I decided all of these things sucked up most of my attention and detracted from my peaceful enjoyment of the underwater world. For the last 6 or 7 years, most of my diving is solo drift in SE Florida, doing nothing more than looking around. I have never enjoyed my diving more.

On special land based or liveaboard trips, I will often take my nice point and shoot in a good housing to capture ambient light photos to share with my family and friends and to include in my ScubaBoard and Undercurrent reviews. However, I'm never just looking for my next shot, they are all around as you enjoy the pleasure of diving.

Norine Rouse Scuba Club of the Palm Beaches ‘Rocks’ .a few drift dives but this charter was the absolute Best of the Best. …hope the club still does these trips. Norine was in her 80s back in the early 80s I am sure she has long passed. …she left a great legacy. Great vacay memories!!!
giantfroginthepool
Scott G. Bonser, Harrellsville, NC

 

[scubadada]

It's not a poll, but we do have one source of periodic anecdotes - the self-reports of divers re-entering the spot after long absences, noted in the introductions section of ScubaBoard.

A frequently cited reason is having and raising kids. People get certified, have fun, then the collective demands of 'adulting' (raising kids, maintaining a career and marriage) crowd scuba diving out. When the kids grow up and move on, there's more time and money to 'play.'

An occasionally cited reason is moving away from diving. Someone might live in or near a coastal area conducive to good local diving, then more far from it, leaving then with a choice of expensive travel dive vacations, diving locally in less optimal conditions (e.g.: quarries, a lake) or giving it up.

Hi @drrich2

Exactly, that's me.

I grew up in So California, certified at age 16 and dived actively for 10 years, mostly shore diving, some trips to Catalina.

Then, I finished medical school, got married, moved up to Portand OR for residency and fellowship. Backpacking, skiing, fishing replaced diving. We had our first chlld. Then we moved to Philadelphia for good jobs, had our second child.

Skip a little ahead, when my son was 11, we took a week vacation to Grand Cayman, watched all the divers. I was recertified with my son when he turned 12. My wife got certified with my daughter when she turned 12 in 2001. We finally had the time and money to afford diving.

We have dived as a family ever since, harder and harder to get our children to join us though dived with my son in 2019 and with my daughter in 2019 and 2022. So, it's now 2257 dives for me, 413 for my wife, 303 for my son, and 79 for my daughter. Working to increase those numbers for all of us

 

[MaxBottomtime]

There’s also the fact that scuba diving in general is stupid expensive to get into. Look at the price of gear, a mid to upper end reg between $600-$1200, computers between $200-to over $1200, bc’s up to $1500! Then you have certification costs. Young people will spend that kind of money on a lot of other things before they will do scuba. Life is expensive enough just to survive. There are a lot of other things they need to spend money on before dumping thousands into a hobby for training and gear, and then have to spend thousands more just to fly somewhere to do it.
So this poll doesn’t surprise me at all.

I found ways around that. After getting certified, my wife and I bought two complete sets of used gear for $700. We made shore dives only. We dived so much that the guys at our LDS would give us free fills about half the time. They eventually hired us to work at the shop part-time on weekends (about 35-38 hours) which cut down on our diving but gave us free fills and gear at cost. One of our instructors took us from advanced through Divemaster for helping with classes and housesitting. Our diving was "free" for eight years until we bought a boat.

Years after the boat died (and my marriage) I went back to making shore dives with free fills. I met Merry and we began shore diving together until we could afford our own boat. We don't do anything else but dive. We don't go out to dinner, movies, other hobbies, etc. We saved as much money as possible to now afford a few trips once we retired. If we didn't dive we would have to find something else to spend money on.