8 Ways To Spot An Old Skool Diver

8 Ways To Spot An Old Skool Diver

Scuba diving is a cool and funky and yet lazy sport so it caters to both the young and the old. Many divers you’ll find around the dive site have either seen too few or too many dive seasons. And the ones that do have a few seasons under their belt tend to have a distinctive look or smell about them… While it’s easy to spot a new diver with all their new shiny kit an old-school diver can be just as easy to spot if you know the tell-tale signs.

Hi, I’m Mark from simply scuba and here are eight ways to spot an old skool diver.

::Contributors::
- Mark Newman
- Shaun Johnson
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Social Links

[AlecPeirceScuba_SeaHunter]

Alec Peirce
Old Skool diver since 1958

[ada]

Haha, my course director has a gigantic expensive watch. The guy is 70+ y.o. and when he took his first PADI course, he already had 1000+ dives :)

[haydenmurphy]

I’m a diver because of my dad and grandpa and believe me my grandpa can not stop talking about his dives

[vespers]

The divers of today would benefit from diving with just a watch and a table.

[anishelali]

About old school divers making their own kit... my dad used to dive with a freakin bucket as a bcd. A BUCKET ! He would fill it with his old rebreather-like thing regulator. I'm now 21 and a 3 star cmas diver or a divemaster in padi. He ALWAYS prioritises safety and problem solving underwater.. he would close my tank or wrap me in fishing net etc in our casual explo dives to train me out of the blue... logical since he's been a commercial diver and saw death more than once (not sat diver) and now a tech diver. I hope to become a professional tech diver one day

[navyhmc]

Definitely Old School! My first tanks were hand me down O2 tanks from a P-51! About doubled 60's with a Voit backpack. I remember when the first AL-50's came out and our first BC was literally a tube inflated Mae-West. That said, I have come to grow to like some of these modern convivences. Things like a good computer. better BCs and the like.

[troop]

Born in 1966. Own a tank born 1962. Still dive an Sherwood oasis 2 in the pool, Still works. Oh I love my big dive watch. Yes I have new regs and computer and still dive with man size knife. Love the videos. Keep up the great work. Oh and Alec Pierce is a friend.

[jimclark]

Your videos are great, I will forgive you for be a snot nosed youngster, in truth you have taught me a lot, keep putting them out. I am lucky enough to dive with my son, hope you have the same experience in the future.

[barrytcoxscuba]

Awesome video, as an old school diver I can whole-heartily relate to this. Most of the time I don't even wear a BCD...

[rickkinney]

I like both, your videos and Alec's. Very interesting and entertaining.

[fredericv]

They complain about how the youngsters don't know the dive sign for pulling the reserve.

[KevinSmith-hcpc]

Thanks for this funny clip. I bet Alec Peirce is laughing too as he probably does have cylinders older than me.

[bobe]

I learned to scuba dive in 1970. We had no boyancy compensators.and just a harness for the air tank. My air tanks were ex Police rescue diver tanks and were made of steel. I had a weight belt that gave me neutral boyancy down to about 30 feet. Below 30 feet my wetsuit would squeeze thinner and I would end up being a bit heavier. A knife, dive fins and my watch with adjustable bezel was about all the gear that we had. I did lots of dives in the 70s and the 80s with just with this basic dive gear and I never had any accidents. We were given a set of charts for deeper diving that were just amended US Navy Standard Air Decompression Tables from 1958, and how do I know this well it is written on them. I used them for all my deeper diving over the years and never had any problems. They were so good and easy to use I would still be using them today if I was still diving.

[beachedbum]

Foot long Dacor stainless steel dive knife hand forged in Germany!

[thekid]

You forgot, dive tags hanging off them older than you. Especially in Canada. Just look for the Tobermory dive tag.

[nilodavila]

I still use my BC from the late 70's, which I paid around $40. I don't have the money to buy the newer ones, which cost a few hundred dollars. I do underwater photography, so I spend my money on that equipment.

[MaddMango]

My friend is an old school commercial diver/underwater welder. He dives warm water with a nomex flight suit or mechanic's coveralls. You should see the looks he gets.

[CaptPegg]

Coming to your shop to read you my dive log, that will learn ya.

[jsdennis]

Huge dive knifes strapped to the calf is a big tell tale sign.

[swedendive]

Mark....you say the old skool divers write down the in log books what they have seen etc...but what about this days? Where to write down all things like "wow I saw a shark...." ??