Scuba, the Sport of Grandparents!

As you can imagine, we got a big response to our item in Flotsam & Jetsam last month, when we noted that a pair of 60-somethings were going for the Guinness World Record for the oldest diving couple. Lots of luck, we thought, knowing our subscribers.

Most who responded were mere youths in their 70s, exemplified by Peggy and Bill Goldberg, but who say that most of the members of their dive club in Gainesville, FL, are closer to 80. One recently widowed woman only just gave up at 91.

Marianne LeSage tells us Spokane (WA) divers Ed and Marlene Torrison are 80 and 72, respectively. Gabriel I. Peñagarícano (Guaynabo, PR), himself a diver of 82, thinks his best friend from grade school, 84-year-old Jack Duncan, and wife Judy of similar age, probably qualify as the oldest married couple still diving.

However, long-time subscriber Phil Hampton (Orlando, FL) wrote, "I am 85 years old and logged my 2,906th scuba dive on my birthday in July 2016, diving with the Turks & Caicos Explorer II. My wife, Grace, logged her 1508th dive in Bonaire September 25, 2015. She missed diving in T&C this year due to a back problem. We will celebrate our 59th Anniversary in November. I was certified in 1969, but Grace didn't get certified until she was 57. That was in December 1987. Almost all of her 1508 dives have been with me. Our last dive together was in Bonaire September 2015." And it looks like there will be more coming up.

No wonder the French call scuba "L'esport des grandparents."