Considerations for an 81 year old Discovery Diver

[rx7diver]

No need to wait for Isla Mujeres if you are wanting to do discovery dives. Most dive centers with a pool will do "Scuba Experience" type dives so his first exposure to diving isn't as intimidating. A couple of pool sessions may make him want to get OW certified and let the real fun begin.

+1. Does your dad already swim well enough? Then, the next step is to introduce him to mask and snorkel and weight belt--in the shallow part of a local pool. Then add fins and easy surface swimming (in mask + fins + snorkel + weight belt. This can be done slowly, a day/week at a time, well before you leave for any planned vacation. This is enough for him (and you) to get a sense of if he actually wants to scuba dive.

Some people will want to leave (skin dive below) the surface. Some people won't want to, may never want to. A friend's wife, a non-diver, went with us on a sailing and diving trip to BVI. She had decided that she would snorkel above us as we dove to moderate recreational depths whenever we moored the boat. By the end of our trip, she had decided that she would get certified ASAP, which she did upon returning home.

Your dad (and you) will know from the pool sessions whether he will want to continue to the discover scuba step. In the pool.

Absolutely have your dad go through a diving physical--that is, a physical conducted by a physician who understands what's necessary to dive safely. Your dad is either okay to dive, or he isn't. The physical will tell.

John Glenn went through an extensive/comprehensive physical before he was allowed to go on his last space flight after he left the U.S. Senate. It only makes sense.

My dad will turn 90 in a couple of months. He is still chopping down trees and splitting firewood. Tough Army veteran. Swims, too. But he wouldn't try my scuba gear when my daughters were being introduced to scuba in my parents' backyard pool a few years ago! Absolutely not! (He'll wear a mask, though, when he's scrubbing the pool.)

Good luck,

rx7diver

 

[Hippocampus01]

My husband is much older than I, he’s 76. We have been diving a long time, and with him, fitness and experience has compensated for falling levels of strength, and we coped much better than most younger people in adverse conditions. However, at the end of last year he got bent. The reason? The only possibility was that he hadn’t drunk enough. He forgot to have a big glass of water before bed the night before, and as we left straight after breakfast, had been too busy eating to think about drinking.
Your Dad will need watching.

 

[Subcooled]

An 81 years old diver?

1. the older you are the less you have to lose and the more you have to gain -> go for it
2. decompression: it is said that the safety stop is 3 minutes at 6m/18ft, but nothing stops you from staying a short while at 9m/27ft, five minutes as 6m/18ft, and then ascending SLOWLY and spending some time at 3m/9ft. A slow ascent rate is of course more gentle to the body. If you have oxygen available, then you could enjoy it after the dive, even without symptoms (I've done exactly that after some hard dives). Would get less tired then.
3. we have an 80 year old cave diver and a 95 year old diver

Simulated decompression at 9m/6m/3m or 27ft/18ft/9ft is not bad choice - it is diving after all.

A 95 year old diver: Buxton cave diving at eighty years: Read more here: 80 Year Old Cave Diver Pushes the Limit – Caving News

 

[agilis]

I'm 79 and have no problems diving. I really don't need anything special for standard Florida/Caribbean head boat diving and I resent operators who try to treat me any differently from people in their 20s or 30s. No platforms, whatever they are, and I can usually clamber up over the side of a small boat if I hand up my tank. Of course, I've been diving for nearly 60 years so there is that in my favor. There is an unfortunate tendency to infantilize older people. I was able to avoid these issues by diving with operators that had known me for years, but all are either retired or dead these days.

I get a lot of satisfaction when I end a dive with a lot more air than most people in the group, though it is irritating when I have eleven or twelve hundred pounds but the dive is called because some people are down to six or seven hundred. I no longer do any deep diving because it's physiologically risky at my age, so nothing over 25 meters. I dive solo in local inlets and jetties, and I'll admit that I can't negotiate rock piles leading to the water as effortlessly as I once did. Still, unless a person asks for help, don't assume they need it.

 

[Subcooled]

"There is an unfortunate tendency to infantilize older people."
That sucks!