What types of divers last the longest?

[chillyinCanada]

I'm going to run out of money and/or health before I run out of desire.

Haven't dived locally in 20 years, not a photographer nor spear fisherman, of course I'm interested in the creatures and like to be able to identify them but it wouldn't matter if I couldn't, I'm a "travel to dive" diver, not a vacation diver.

It's the zen of it all and sometimes the excitement.

 

[Diving Dubai]

I'm lucky, in that my wife and I both dive, indeed it was diving that brought us together.

I'm going to put social up there too. We all lead busy lives and getting together with regular friends who are divers, keep you together. I've just come off a 2 D 2N boat which we charter and organise every month. The majority of the people we don't see from one trip to the next, some only come on 1 or 2 trips a year. While diving is the link the social aspect is great, having a couple of beers after the days diving and some banter.

This weekend was a great example. The Tides and currents were against us being a New moon and with slack water around 10:30am. This meant that the favourite sites were un-divable (We only have short windows because of the route we take). So the diving was mediocre at best with nothing special and poor vis Never the less everyone had a great time and a good laugh, it helps that we go out of mobile phone reception on just outside the harbour so everyone gets a blessed relief from the modern world as well.

Even people who don't dive as much now still come to the social gatherings a couple of times a year, so everyone keeps in touch in person (as opposed to social media)

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I'm 18 years active diver now.
What keeps me going is being able to dive locally. The closest diving to me is about an hour and a half away. I hunt and gather. The food aspect and small shell collecting keeps me going. I would probably dive anyway locally even if I was just sight seeing. It's a therapy.
I don't care about water temp, cold water is fine by me and certainly not a deal breaker. I got into tech diving back in about 2002 and dabbled in that but decided it was too much money and not enough of a serious buddy pool around here so I gave it up and went back to regular diving.
I was a photog years ago, out there with my Nikonos film camera and all the strobes, etc. I have drawers full of slides that I never take out and look at. Photography was fun but it also became another obsticle in many ways. It became an obsession that wasn't even so much about the end product but more about the challenge of obtaining the image. I weighed out the pros and cons and I found I was happier to leave the camera behind and just enjoy the scenery right there and then. The clutter and gadgetry aspect kind of got in the way. But I'm not going to say I will never get back into it because I may at some point.

I had a whole group of friends that got into tech diving before me and all of them are gone out of diving now. They were flash in the pan divers that peaked out and then were so vain about their image that they couldn't go back to just doing normal fun dives because that would have somehow signified defeat. I used to ask them what they saw when they did their training dives in the Monterey trench where all there is is a mud sand sloping bottom and they would say "200' on my gauge". Wow! So that's it?
There really isn't a reason to tech dive around here, we don't have wrecks or much of anything that deep.

I really don't know too many warm water only divers in my area, because unless they dive locally I would have no contact with them. But I have run into many casually out of the diving loop that tell me they tried diving and did it for a few years but the gloss wore off and they forgot about it. The cost got to be too much to always have to travel somewhere to dive, and so their gear sits in a box somewhere in the garage or in a storage unit. This is where I have acquired much of my free dive gear.

Then I've also seen many DIR divers drop out. I never hear from any of the famous LA group that were big in the late 90's early 2000's. Mike Kane, Johnny Walker, Maciek, and many others all gone. The one that was around here is gone. I think their strict protocols, inability to be flexible, and lack of qualified like-minded buddies is a factor. I have other ideas but with the risk of starting a war I think I'll keep it to myself.

So looking at it, I think it's the local diving and the ones who can tolerate or overlook the physical difficulties of local diving that seem to last the longest. And the ones who just keep it simple, keep an open mind, and are capable of just being happy getting wet without needing to do some big grand dive every time. It's learning to enjoy the little things that keeps us motivated. And avoiding the pitfalls of some OCD pigeon hole.

Don't ever think you're "too good" to jusy enjoy a simple shallow dive and try to find things that maybe you never considered looking at or appreciating.
In other words, try to see the kelp forest for the trees and try to forget about how dorky or un-cool you are at the moment even though you might hold every certification under the sun and dived the Doria 50 times.
If you have an attitude that you're too good to do a basic fun dive, or you have a "been there done that" attitude you'll never last. Trying to out do every previous dive is not sustainsble.
Learn how to enjoy the littlest things, this is how you last.

 

[mdb]

So looking at it, I think it's the local diving and the ones who can tolerate or overlook the physical difficulties of local diving that seem to last the longest. And the ones who just keep it simple and are capable of just being happy getting wet without needing to do some big grand dive every time. It's learning to enjoy the little things that keeps us motivated.

I think you are spot on Eric. For me a relaxing dive clears the brain and always gets me back to center.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I started diving in early 2001, at age 49, and will be logging dive #3800 this week-end. Expect I'll hit 4,000 sometime next summer. When I first started, a lot of folks told me to slow down or I'd burn out. Haven't seen any sign of that happening yet. In fact, diving puts me in my happy place, and it's something I expect I'll be doing right up to the point where my body will no longer support the weight of a scuba tank.

I've seen a lot of people come and go over the past 15 years. Some because of life changes, like marriage and kids. Others due to career choices that take them in other directions. Some are competitive, and quickly hit their "pinnacle" ... then move on to become "the best" at some other activity. I've known a few who quit because they pushed too hard, too fast, and ended up scaring the crap out of themselves. Then there are those friends who just didn't make it back after their last dive ... some of them were quite good and every bit as enthusiastic about diving as I am. But things happen, and sometimes it ends tragically. One of those caused me to seriously question whether or not I really wanted to continue diving ... the joy left for a time, but it has returned.

My own underwater journey has taken many turns. After a couple years of diving recreationally I decided to pursue DM training, and help with classes. Through that I decided to pursue becoming an instructor, and taught for 12 years. I stuck my toe in the DIR pool, and decided that while the skills were nice to have the culture just wasn't my cup of tea. So I pursued tech training through NAUI, and developed a nice circle of tech friends for local deep and wreck diving. For a few years, that was enough to scratch my itch for the new and exciting. I went to Florida and got trained in cave diving, and through that connection took up sidemount. Then I discovered the Mexico caves and fell in love all over again. For the past decade or so I have been carrying a camera. I started with a small point and shoot and have upgraded several times since then. Today I carry an entry-level DSLR with the usual accessories, and find myself dreaming of something even fancier ... but I'll need about $10K to invest if I really want to start all over again with the range of lenses and ports I currently have. I'm rarely underwater anymore without my camera, but sometimes ... like this past Saturday ... I find myself content to just swim along taking in a landscape that's too big to do justice to with a lens.

One of the things that keeps diving a fresh experience for me is mentoring ... taking new divers diving, and experiencing the dive through their eyes. They get so excited about things I've seen so many times I would otherwise take it for granted ... it keeps my reasons for diving in perspective, and helps me "pay forward" all the people who have helped me throughout my time underwater.

I'll be retiring in less than two years, and expect I'll be moving away from the greater Puget Sound area ... it's getting expensive to live here, and retirement means living on a fixed income. But wherever I go ... and I don't really know where that will be yet ... access to diving will be a serious consideration. I don't see myself giving it up until time catches up with me and forces me to ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Chavodel8en]

Don't ever think you're "too good" to jusy enjoy a simple shallow dive and try to find things that maybe you never considered looking at or appreciating.
In other words, try to see the kelp forest for the trees and try to forget about how dorky or un-cool you are at the moment even though you might hold every certification under the sun and dived the Doria 50 times.
If you have an attitude that you're too good to do a basic fun dive, or you have a "been there done that" attitude you'll never last. Trying to out do every previous dive is not sustainsble.
Learn how to enjoy the littlest things, this is how you last.

There is a lot of truth to this last paragraph, even for someone like me, who only does recreational dives. I started about 15 years ago, dived a lot locally, then basically lost a lot of interest. I'd dived all the local shore dives, all the fish were the same. ( I used to Fish ID, but stopped after they all seemed familiar to me). Went several years diving not very often, generally only on vacation in warmer waters.

I had to readjust my expectations of the local diving. I likely wouldn't be seeing any new fish. Some of the dives are very familiar. Still its cool to experience.

I think I successfully adjusted my mentality so that local diving is fun again.

 

[2airishuman]

Talking to former or inactive divers, it seems common for them to have had a particularly frightening (or at least unpleasant) incident on one of their last dives.

I wonder how common this is.

 

[redacted]

Over the past 5 years, I have given up local diving one destination at a time. FGB due to some problems with the dive op. Local lakes just got too boring and LDS closures make air filter!ls a problem. Volunteer diving cleaning up a local spring due to their policy changes (stopped providing air and started to charge for parking).

So now it is just vacation diving and that is starting to be a hassle also. I think the end is near.

 

[Hank49]

The type of divers that last the longest?....Taking a guess, but probably ones who, as mentioned, have easy access to good diving. And ones who have a love for the sea. Boating, surfing, body surfing, sailing, free diving....spearfishing, photography (same skills as spearfishing as far as getting close to fish) It's all good.....unreal, actually.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Over the past 5 years, I have given up local diving one destination at a time. FGB due to some problems with the dive op. Local lakes just got too boring and LDS closures make air filter!ls a problem. Volunteer diving cleaning up a local spring due to their policy changes (stopped providing air and started to charge for parking).

So now it is just vacation diving and that is starting to be a hassle also. I think the end is near.

Sounds like you need to move!