Why aren't more people taking up scuba diving?

[drrich2]

A few follow up thoughts.

On the social end, diving is heavily pushed as buddy system dependent. For solo you need over 100 dives and are then still regarded as a risk-taking maverick. As an only child who spent most of his childhood in a very rural setting, I'm sensitive to the fact a hobby needs to have solo accessibility (especially if you're an oddball introvert who's not into hunting or school sports).

You can hop on a bike and ride around the neighborhood. For the warm water coral reef diving so many love, it's hop on a plane, stay at a hotel, and pay a charter boat op. $125 or so to take you out for 2 dives, and either bring your own buddy or get put with an insta-buddy.

Also on the social side, ScubaBoard is a big part of keeping me in the diving loop with a sense of being involved. If it weren't for online scuba interaction, it'd be easy to drift away. I don't dive with anybody I work with these days, and I think that's true for a lot of people.

It might help to market online scuba communities to OW students, to get them engaged in the larger scuba community.

On a darker note, this forum also shows us that divers can be pretty critical of each other. The typical new OW diver is apt to be PADI or SSI-trained, pretty limited in confidence and ability, wearing a jacket BCD and split fins, might have an SPG dangling, and can go through air pretty fast. Oh, and often doesn't own, use or know how to use tables (or forgets real fast) and trusts riding the computer (and is thankfully limited by gas supply; the 80 cf tank as an industry standard probably helps prevent a lot of bases of DCS in my opinion, vs. handling out 120's).

Now, how would that diver be regarded if he posted on the forum? Or worse, someone filmed him and posted the video on the forum as an example of incompetent divers produced by dangerously dumbed down training by morally corrupt profit-driven agencies in their 'race to the bottom' in diver training? Probably nobody would say anything on the charter boat trip, but on the forum?

Richard.

 

[scubafanatic]

Todays young people often seem Borg-like with their incredible attachment to synthetic/cyber 'reality' and wired/wireless gadgets, this appears to be their focus of time/money. This may be contributing to the decline of 'real' physical activity seen across so many different sports.
Middle aged/older divers are coming to grips with economic reality (ie retirement planning, caring for aging/ill parents,etc.) I've drastically cut back in dive trips over the last few yrs as I've gotten more serious about saving for retirement/possible job loss. It's a decision that saddens me in the here-and-now, but I know it's the responsible thing to do in the longer run.

 

[Pullmyfinger]

Can anyone on this thread comment on BSAC and their "dive club" oriented approach? How does this play out RE attracting and keeping divers interested in the sport?

From what I've seen, BSAC divers appear to be among the most fervently devoted to their agency here on SB. (Neck and neck with GUE it seems. ) Also, UK divers seem quite dedicated to diving near home in less-than-idyllic conditions. Is BSAC and its approach responsible for this?

Maybe this is something the industry at large can learn from?

The group I trained with and eventually taught for at UC Berkeley in the '80s and '90s was incredibly good at "retaining" divers after their training, by involving them in progressing towards teaching, as well as regularly organizing fun dive trips. It was a true "community of divers", and decades later, we are all still very close.

I think the dive club approach would be great!
I wish there were more of them in the US. I enjoy the social aspect of diving very much; dive clubs would be perfect for this.

I have found that GUE ends up being this way in many ways. A buddy and I are flying to New Zealand this year to meet up for a week of diving with some other GUE divers.

I also stay in touch with some other GUE divers, some in Japan, and one in the Middle East. I think this is one of the great things about diving. We sometime lose sight of the fact that we all doing something that is VERY cool, and we all have that common ground.
I think it would be great if there was more of that dive club environment in the US.

 

[Vislor]

I think as to the question of retention of newly-certified divers that some of it has to do with the "money grab" attitude that seems to be present in a lot of the industry (or rather the little niche of the industry I'm familiar with I should say).

About a month ago my LDS sponsored a weekend trip to southern Florida. About 20 or so people were signed up on that trip, which was a total of 9 available dives over 3 days. Many were younger people (teens, early 20s) and several were even newer at diving than I am.

The sea conditions that weekend were described by the charter company as "sporty". I would hate to see what they call "rough" as sporty appears to mean seas of 8 - 10 feet with occasional 12 footers thrown in for good measure (at least that's what the captain told me when I asked as we were coming back to port on one trip, and given that I was occasionally having to look up to see the top of a wave I'm sure he was pretty close on his estimate).

This obviously led to a lot of very miserable people: just about everyone was puking at one point or another and at least one guy got a cut on his head while boarding the boat after a dive. By the end of the weekend there were 5 people left of the 20 or so that started (and ironically the last boat was probably the best diving of the weekend). I asked one of the DM's why they didn't call any of the boat trips and the answer was basically not wanting to have to refund any money. Once the boat leaves, whether you dive or not, the money is not refundable.

But in the long run what good came out of this? How many of those new divers have been scared off because of a trip like this? (Note that we could not see the conditions of the seas when we boarded the boat, the inlet where the boat was harbored was actually pretty smooth and we couldn't see the open ocean from there). Should the charter place have at least warned us of the actual conditions (as opposed to calling them "sporty"?) It sure can't be fun sitting there puking your guts out while the boat crew / DM's joke about getting a bonus for your money (amusement park ride and dive trip all for the price of one).

On one of the trips one of the DM's joked about a previous trip like this where they had a new OW diver onboard, she had all her own gear and it was her first trip since being certified. After the second dive of a two-tank ride she apparently went to the front of the boat, took all her gear off, placed it in a pile, and stated "it's all for sale. I'm done."

I do understand that we can't control the weather, and if you ride in a boat enough sometimes it's gonna be not so smooth. But where do you draw the line between not wanting to refund money versus not wanting to send people on what you know is going to be a miserable trip?

 

[rivers]

Can anyone on this thread comment on BSAC and their "dive club" oriented approach? How does this play out RE attracting and keeping divers interested in the sport?

From what I've seen, BSAC divers appear to be among the most fervently devoted to their agency here on SB. (Neck and neck with GUE it seems. ) Also, UK divers seem quite dedicated to diving near home in less-than-idyllic conditions. Is BSAC and its approach responsible for this?

Maybe this is something the industry at large can learn from?

The group I trained with and eventually taught for at UC Berkeley in the '80s and '90s was incredibly good at "retaining" divers after their training, by involving them in progressing towards teaching, as well as regularly organizing fun dive trips. It was a true "community of divers", and decades later, we are all still very close.

The thing is, even in the BSAC club environment, there is a struggle to gain and retain members. My club runs a couple of membership drives every year. Last one we did in October, we collected information for well over 100 people, but out of that 100+, we got maybe 8 new members.
And as a member of the GUE-UK facebook group, we actively organise dives and events throughout the year. We regularly have a London drinks meet-up and there are dive trips to the sea and quarries organised regularly as well as last minute events.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I think being part of a club is great. Then everyone who's not part of your club gets to go on the internet and complain that you're an elitist ...

If you want to see where the industry's growing, look at China. They have a growing middle class, who want all the things their western counterparts have been taking for granted for the past few decades ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[0002s]

Perhaps it's time?

Yes, you are correct.

As a person who fits the idea SCUBA target demographic, I am completely amazed at how the industry, as a whole, wastes my time.

 

[shoredivr]

For those mentioning the cost of scuba diving, compare it to buying a skidoo, or a motorcycle, or an ATV, or a dirt bike, the numbers are about the same.

I think it's either not "extreme" enough (like kitesurfing) or it's too dangerous in the public's mind. Can't win, so might as well go back to staring at a screen.

 

[redacted]

For those mentioning the cost of scuba diving, compare it to buying a skidoo, or a motorcycle, or an ATV, or a dirt bike, the numbers are about the same.

I think it's either not "extreme" enough (like kitesurfing) or it's too dangerous in the public's mind. Can't win, so might as well go back to staring at a screen.

In the case of Scuba diving, costs are often high because manufacturers and agencies work very hard to control competition, avoid efficiencies, and keep those prices unnecessarily high.

HOG is a good example of a distributor (manufacturer) bucking that trend. But the cost of changing that system will be a reduction, perhaps large, in the number of small, inefficient, dive shops. Shops know that which is why it is hard to find many smaller shops carrying HOG.

 

[Hawkwood]

For those mentioning the cost of scuba diving, compare it to buying a skidoo, or a motorcycle, or an ATV, or a dirt bike, the numbers are about the same.

I think it's either not "extreme" enough (like kitesurfing) or it's too dangerous in the public's mind. Can't win, so might as well go back to staring at a screen.

Maybe, but you can finance the skidoo, motorcycle, ATV, etc. with a "low montly payment".

In my area, there is much more opportunity to take advatage of using those than using dive gear. Plus, when you tire of it there are more folks looking to take it off you hands.