Average age of divers today???

[Searcaigh]

I had no interest in diving until my 30s, it was all circumstantial as I did not live near the sea. To be honest I used to find it strange that people living so far from the sea start diving as in Denver CO.

But having lived in Riyadh in the middle of Saudi for several years and usually had a dive trip every month to Jeddah I now understand.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I like this thread! I'm pushing 60 and I don't feel so old after reading through it.

I started diving when I was 20 while I was working on my engineering degree. I was at General Motors Institute an engineeing school owned by GM back when GM was the biggest, richest company in the world. I became a GM employee when I started at 18 so I was able to pay my way through and still manage to get certified and scrape together enough money to do some diving in the short summer Great Lakes wreck diving season. Back then premium gas was 35 cents a gallon! Money was still tight but I lived a rather austere lifestyle and you find a way to do what you really want to do. I finished with my degree, a good job. and no debt. Opportunities like that for young people today are pretty rare so its no wonder not as many are getting into the sport.

When I was 35 I got married to a gal I met on a dive trip to Australia. She worked for Republic Airlines before they merged with Northwest. She had this T-shirt that read "Marry me and fly free!", so I did. For a few years we were in diving heaven flying business class anywhere in the world for $75. After a couple of years she (oops! make that we) decided we should have a couple of kids to spoil with our lifestyle, so we did that. Boy does that cut into your diving dollars! Then we decided she should go on and quit her job so she could be a full time stay at home mom, bye bye business class.

My daughter went snorkling with me the first time when she was three over a shallow reef at Kunkungan Bay in Sulewasi. She nearly strangled me when she jumped on my back after a damsel fish "charged" her, but she was hooked. She was certified when she was 12 and has 30-40 dives in her log book. She has been dry docked for a few years now as all of her "diving dollars" are devoted to her college education. She has been working hard the past year because she and a college chum have hatched a scheme to go diving in the Caribbean as soon as they can scrape the money together.

Meanwhile I am semi-retired and the wife and I are back to diving a couple of times a year. On our last trip, Raja Ampat aboard the Damai, we were the youngest couple on the boat! We are headed to PNG in September and we know that is going to be an older group also. We have been blessed to be able to live the lifestyle we have and to have seen the places and things we have. Today's economic realities are going to make it difficult for our daughter and her generation and future generations to experience what we have. It will be interesting to see if the diving industry evolves, or slowly fades away.


Live to dive, dive to live!

Great story!

I think diving and the whole recreational sports market in general is actually changing before our very eyes.
It used to be that the average American with a decent job and unchecked endless credit could jump into any sport they wanted from mountain biking to skiiing to wakeboarding to scuba diving. They had the funds one way or the other wether it was real money or fake money to just go out and get everything they would need to do the sport of the year.

Now things are different. I think there will always be divers around but the people who decide to go on tropical vacations and 'oh by the way we need to get scuba certified and buy all the stuff before we go' crowd is going to be a thing of the past.
People are finding out what a hard reality it is to be able to live within their means without endless credit and an ATM machine giving them fee money out of their house in the form of a re-fi every two years to be able to go do this stuff.

The younger crowd is very familiar with living within their means because they don't have a choice, unless they are trust fund babies but I'm not talking about those types.
When they buy stuff with cold hard cash that they eeked out in a starter job they look for the most economical ways to do stuff.
Full priced scuba gear from an LDS and lavish vacations don't really fit into that lifestyle too well.

 

[spectrum]

50+ is certainly the case for our dive club. I'd also suspect that group to be under represented in this poll as they are less likely to be hanging out here reading and posting.

You can add one more 50+ for my wife

Pete

 

[chs8084]

I could not afford to even learn to dive when I was younger but my husband took me to Bonaire for a 50th birthday present OW course. Best (but ultimately most expensive) birthday present ever.

 

[RTee]

I certified OW at the age of 18 and then due to money and time available I dove sporadically for two years then stopped due to work and conflicting priorities. I resumed diving seriously at the age of 49...two years ago. Since then I got certified in Nitrox, AOW, Rescue diver and DM. Now in the middle of my certif dives for Adv Nitrox and deco proc. My GF got certified at the age of 44 and is now EAN and AOW qualified: Perhaps later this summer she might go for her RD: Last year I got my son qual OW, EAN and AOW at the age of 16.

 

[honeylager]

I voted 30-39 by mistake, I'm 17 lol.

 

[CuNanoTube]

Man, I am one of the 6 youngest divers who voted. Oh well, more time to get experience.

 

[FritzCat66]

Looks like the poll is leaning 40-60, although keep in mind that this is really just showing the ages of divers who 1) are on ScubaBoard, and 2) respond to posts & polls. The skew is undoubtedly non-trivial. Perhaps the certification agencies have more hard data regarding diver age at time of certification?

 

[LakeCountyDiver]

Looks like the poll is leaning 40-60, although keep in mind that this is really just showing the ages of divers who 1) are on ScubaBoard, and 2) respond to posts & polls. The skew is undoubtedly non-trivial. Perhaps the certification agencies have more hard data regarding diver age at time of certification?

No this poll was just to get an idea and so far with just the few that have voted it is looking true. All active divers I run into are on this board. I am not wanting to hear from the vacation divers I am looking at the folks dive on a regular basis and/or that try to dive when ever they can (which is most on this board). There are 10's of thousands of people that are certified but never dive.

This is just a small hint of what it may look like in the diving world. So far it is leaning 40's+ to be the higher group of divers. I am 24 and I can't imagine doing anything else. This sure beats welding pipe in power houses and ethonal plants.

 

[under water]

....There is another reason, the increasing girth of people, young people included, precludes an active lifestyle, sitting on the couch and playing video games is real enough I suppose... N

Maybe it's just me, but I haven't noticed that the scuba diving bunch is a particularly skinny bunch in general. (self included)

I agree with the general sentiment that scuba tends to cost money (gear & trips) plus available vacation time. Most young familes plan their vacations around their kids, so that gives the kid-free folks a disproportionate representation.

My personal experience is that American divers tend to be older than those I have seen in other parts of the world.