People often post about where the best place to live as a diver is . . . I think, in the US, Seattle probably has it hands-down. As long as you are willing to do the work of diving in cold water (thick exposure protection and lots of lead), you live where water conditions are favorable for diving about any day that you would be willing to set foot outside of your house. And although we have some great charter boats, you don't have to go out on a boat at all, because some of our very BEST sites are shore dives.
Until this year, I've averaged 100 to 150 dives a year, most of them at home, with a couple of dive trips each year. This year, I'm falling down on the total number of at-home dives (in part because I bought myself six weeks or more out of the water with a broken hand) but I'm doing more trips. Trips range from fairly inexpensive (we figure about $2500 for the two of us, for a week of cave diving in MX) to pretty painful (about twice that per person for the trip to dive with the manta rays in the Socorros.)