Waning SCUBA Participation

[John C. Ratliff]

As you know, Navy Seals can choose their fins once they are out of training, swim school and other
post Coronado Schools.

Many Seals use bio-fins, they splash easily from a helicopter jump and work well in open water.

Force Fins are also a popular choice.

Of course the standard Jet Fins, and other paddle fins, are also in use.

Depends on the operator.

Both split fins and Force Fins are a choice for use by SEALs and PJs in parachuting free fall into water, as they handle better in the air during the free fall portion of a parachute jump, so I've been told. These fins also are easier to exit a C-130 or other aircraft for these jumps. I haven't done any free fall, but used to do parascuba jumping as a USAF pararescueman.

SeaRat

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I've read about half of these posts, and am a bit troubled by the thought that people are saying the sport diving is declining. I think part of the problem is that the industry is focusing on travel diving, and not local diving. There are a lot of things to see locally, and I have produced several videos about that aspect. I dive extensively in fresh water in the Clackamas River, and I'd like to share two different videos I have produced.

This video goes into a dive I made showing some of the life in the river.

I have watched lampreys in the rivers most of my life. I put this video together to document the mating of lampreys in the Clackamas River, and it was quite an adventure. This is purposely a long video, meant to give researchers a very good documentation of the spawning habits of this very unique, and very old, species. So if you are not into long videos, you can skip this one.

This video documents the amount of lead in my dive site, from fishing. This one is shorter, and more of an adventure in my dive site.

One of my critiques of current diving is the emphasis on coral and travel. There is so much to see in many local dive sites, that you don't have to "go" to see things. We have a major highway, I-205, going by just upstream of this dive site, yet I can go there and see things no one else has observed. We are not teaching people how to observe things anymore. We are not teaching about the "feeling" of weightlessness either. It is this feeling that keeps me, at age 72, diving. I love being underwater even in a pool and feeling the three-dimensional aspect of diving, and simply breathing underwater. These are the things we need to instill in our new divers, and not the feeling that to enjoy diving we need to be a warm-water diver at some live-aboard or diving destination.

Enjoy,

SeaRat

 

[CuzzA]

I skimmed through this thread and there seems to be a consensus that the dive industry and scuba participation is dwindling, yet I have not seen anyone cite any resource, research, article or otherwise. Contrary to what's been reported here, DEMA has produced numbers in the past regarding the growth of the industry and the US still makes up nearly half of all divers with a consistent growth of new divers every year. Mostly from California, Florida and Texas.

Freediving has become very popular among young adults, which makes sense since scuba comes with a higher price point. At some point many will probably try scuba. Many freedivers I know are also scuba certified.

It sounds like there's just quite a few bad business models out there for dive shops, or they have not learned how to adapt to the market place.

 

[TMHeimer]

I skimmed through this thread and there seems to be a consensus that the dive industry and scuba participation is dwindling, yet I have not seen anyone cite any resource, research, article or otherwise. Contrary to what's been reported here, DEMA has produced numbers in the past regarding the growth of the industry and the US still makes up nearly half of all divers with a consistent growth of new divers every year. Mostly from California, Florida and Texas.

Freediving has become very popular among young adults, which makes sense since scuba comes with a higher price point. At some point many will probably try scuba. Many freedivers I know are also scuba certified.

It sounds like there's just quite a few bad business models out there for dive shops, or they have not learned how to adapt to the market place.

I too have skimmed through, being away a bit. All kinds of theories about the "waning", some with experiences or numbers to back it up. One person mentioned a decline in diving according to a report covering the last 10 years. Some cite young people being too involved with social media and games (like Scubaboard......?). Perhaps CuzzA has a good point though--I mentioned a way back that there doesn't seem to much change in things around here.
Some cite that local diving is not being emphasized enough--perhaps. I didn't find that to be true when assiting OW courses here 2012-15.
So, what era are we comparing today's situation to? 10-15 years ago (I started in 2005)?---basically the same "alternate" activities as we have today. The 90s, early 2000s?--Computers/computer games were getting and became very popular. Before that--or even back to the 60s when it was a much more "restricted" activity for fit young military males?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I've read about half of these posts, and am a bit troubled by the thought that people are saying the sport diving is declining. I think part of the problem is that the industry is focusing on travel diving, and not local diving. There are a lot of things to see locally, and I have produced several videos about that aspect. I dive extensively in fresh water in the Clackamas River, and I'd like to share two different videos I have produced.

This video goes into a dive I made showing some of the life in the river.

I have watched lampreys in the rivers most of my life. I put this video together to document the mating of lampreys in the Clackamas River, and it was quite an adventure. This is purposely a long video, meant to give researchers a very good documentation of the spawning habits of this very unique, and very old, species. So if you are not into long videos, you can skip this one.

This video documents the amount of lead in my dive site, from fishing. This one is shorter, and more of an adventure in my dive site.

One of my critiques of current diving is the emphasis on coral and travel. There is so much to see in many local dive sites, that you don't have to "go" to see things. We have a major highway, I-205, going by just upstream of this dive site, yet I can go there and see things no one else has observed. We are not teaching people how to observe things anymore. We are not teaching about the "feeling" of weightlessness either. It is this feeling that keeps me, at age 72, diving. I love being underwater even in a pool and feeling the three-dimensional aspect of diving, and simply breathing underwater. These are the things we need to instill in our new divers, and not the feeling that to enjoy diving we need to be a warm-water diver at some live-aboard or diving destination.

Enjoy,

SeaRat

I thoroughly enjoyed that!

 

[northernone]

I've read about half of these posts, and am a bit troubled by the thought that people are saying the sport diving is declining. I think part of the problem is that the industry is focusing on travel diving, and not local diving. There are a lot of things to see locally, and I have produced several videos about that aspect. I dive extensively in fresh water in the Clackamas River, and I'd like to share two different videos I have produced.

This video goes into a dive I made showing some of the life in the river.

I have watched lampreys in the rivers most of my life. I put this video together to document the mating of lampreys in the Clackamas River, and it was quite an adventure. This is purposely a long video, meant to give researchers a very good documentation of the spawning habits of this very unique, and very old, species. So if you are not into long videos, you can skip this one.

This video documents the amount of lead in my dive site, from fishing. This one is shorter, and more of an adventure in my dive site.

One of my critiques of current diving is the emphasis on coral and travel. There is so much to see in many local dive sites, that you don't have to "go" to see things. We have a major highway, I-205, going by just upstream of this dive site, yet I can go there and see things no one else has observed. We are not teaching people how to observe things anymore. We are not teaching about the "feeling" of weightlessness either. It is this feeling that keeps me, at age 72, diving. I love being underwater even in a pool and feeling the three-dimensional aspect of diving, and simply breathing underwater. These are the things we need to instill in our new divers, and not the feeling that to enjoy diving we need to be a warm-water diver at some live-aboard or diving destination.

Enjoy,

SeaRat

Enjoyable reply as always.

Rewatched your videos. I must have missed your post in the past explaining your flip down magnifying lens on your mask, they look excellent for enjoying the smaller critters.

Regards,
Cameron

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Enjoyable reply as always.

Rewatched your videos. I must have missed your post in the past explaining your flip down magnifying lens on your mask, they look excellent for enjoying the smaller critters.

Regards,
Cameron

Cameron,

The device you are talking about can be seen in my video, "Getting the Lead Out," and is called the SeawiscopeEY. The "EY" on the end of the name stands for "Ever Young," and was developed by a Hong Kong diver and optometrist, C.Y. Tang, who was also head of the optometry department of a Hong Kong university. As people age (and I'm one), we tend to loose our near vision, and need correction. For several years I tried the mask inserts, but they really bothered me on dive exits (I tend to keep my mask on and down exiting the water). So I found out about this device, wrote to them, and received one in 2011. I have been using one on most dives ever since. Not only does it correct for near vision, but is also, as you stated above, allows very close, macro life observations that I could not see before. I have observed small, inch-long sculpin feeding, watched a hydra the length on my thumbnail catch detritus while attached to a leaf, seen the lamprey spawning (the 2011 observations I talked about in my video), and looked closely at the freshwater sponge on the rocks. On the bottom of Rocks, small insect nymphs can be readily observed. The SeawiscopeEY is excellent for close and macro observation for the underwater naturalist in freshwater, where there is a lot of life, but usually on a smaller scale than in saltwater. And, these observations are in three-D. Here is their website:

Ever Young: a true near vision aid for divers

SeaRat

 

[Midwesterndvr]

From what I’ve seen sport diving is waning. I think the next generations have different interests entirely. Young people like outdoor activitys like biking, snow boarding, hiking etc. Scuba is an activity that requires more training,equipment maintenance and often travel. It’s not exactly what you would call on demand I personally don’t know any divers in my age range (mid 30s) I’ve had more interest and questions from people in their 40s and 50s.

 

[bladder]

Those beautiful shots that shows like Blue Planet give us are not what divers see today.

Once you get people in the water, you have to find a way to keep them coming back. If they are seeing what I am seeing today, I would have to think they would not see the value in it.

I'd say that covers it.

Given the expense and the time commitments to diving, and so many other vacation alternatives, a person really needs to experience that "wow" factor to keep coming back.

Unless they've got the passion for diving that most posters on this board probably do, and enjoy diving just for the experience, they'll get their checkout dives done, eagerly anticipate their first real open water dives on a "quality" dive site and come up after the dive thinking "What am I missing here, it just wasn't that great".

Eventually even passionate divers like us are probably going to see less value in it as well. I'm not sure what's going to happen first- am I going to hit the age where I won't be fit to dive, or will it simply be not worth doing it anymore.

Now it’s a $600+ BC, $200 fins, $400-$800 full regs set, $2000-$3000 drysuit, and a computer from $300 to over 1K, plus a bunch of other “mandatory” gear.

No need to buy brand new gear.

I've always bought my gear used. Quality serviced gear, as good as or better than the stuff you spend insane amounts of money for. I just hooked up a buddy with recently rebuilt serviced regulators, older model air integrated dive computer and ScubaPro BCD with integrated regulator- the entire rig and computer was $750. Add another $100 for a good mask and fins .

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I think the “local diving” theory is very well justified. Now that it has been mentioned, travel diving to colorful coral reefs and warm blue water is what is marketed, and not local diving.
Local diving however can mean a lot of different things.
I also think the general population is very intimidated by scuba diving and everything about it. Starting with the training, to the gear, to the mystery of the ocean and going into the unknown environment, then there's the stigma of sharks, tales of equipment failure (true or not).
I have run into more people that say they would NEVER try scuba diving because the thought freaks them out, “what if something happened?!”

There has always been this and there will always be this.
Not everybody is capable physically or mentally to be a diver.

The perceived “decline” we’re supposedly seeing is the rinse out of people who got caught up in the 80’s and 90’s diving boom when the popularity of scuba was artificially pumped. A lot of resorts were being developed and gear was rapidly changing and adapting to accomodate just about everybody and all skill levels. It was the newest hottest thing. A lot of those people are older now and have moved on. It’s actually going back to normal. What we saw 20-30 years ago was a spike, not a normal participation level.
The sad part, in regards to the dive industry as a whole, is that in order for capitalism to work it must continue to grow and expand like a pyramid. If it stalls or just maintains a steady pace then it’s not considered profitable it’s just paying wages. That’s not the true spirit of capitalism and making money. The thing is, maybe scuba diving never should have been looked at as a cash cow, it’s the wrong business for that.