How much does diving cost? Well it depends.

Some people say diving is a rich man’s sport. Sure, it can be, but try telling that to the Japanese pearl divers that use nothing but a hand made rope tied to their waist and maybe a pair of goggles if they can afford it. Diving costs as much as you want it to or as much as you can afford. Depending on what type of diving you would like to do can determine how much you will spend.

Let’s narrow the types of diving to these normal, modern day experiences:

Snorkeling

Free diving

SCUBA Diving – Open Water

SCUBA Diving – Professional

Hunting

We’ll talk about what each type of diving is, what you have to go through to get there and how much it would cost.

I have personally tried each of these types of diving to gain a moderate to deep level of understanding about that type. I have a few hundred dives under my belt during the past 6 years and feel I have a pretty good grasp about what I am doing. I’ll talk about my costs involved with gaining these experiences and sum up where I decided to spend my money. Finally, I’ll talk about the type of returns I see with these dives, both monetarily and spiritually.

Keep in mind that what I have spent is in no way a reflection on what you should spend if you are willing to get into the sport. If you’re poor, you will probably look for the cheapest items that you can find which will allow you to do what you want. If you are rich, you may look towards the more costly and sometimes outrageously expensive items just to have the best of the best or to be able to due something that most won’t be able to afford. So instead of going through the entire gambit of possibilities, let’s look middle of the road and assume you want to follow the same guidelines that I did for myself:

Peer reviews say it works well (other divers like it)

It will be a good investment (It is built to last)

It is reasonably priced for what it is (shop around)

It will be used more than a couple of times (borrow to try or pay to use)

Is it versatile? (can I use it for other dive types?)

The experience it gives me (what do I get out of it?)

Snorkeling

Just about anyone can go snorkeling, all it takes is a mask, snorkel and fins. Anything else you buy for snorkeling is unnecessary, but may greatly enhance your experience. You don’t need any training for this other than the ability to swim so there are no certifications for it. A snorkel package can be very inexpensive and usually doesn’t get too pricey.

For a good experience you’ll want to get a good mask, spend some extra money for that but try them on in the store to make sure you are getting a good buy. I personally use my good expensive masks for this because there is nothing worse to me than getting in the water and not being able to look down. Expect an average mask to be around $30.

For a snorkel you can get just about any style that fits in your mouth. They are pretty cheap and don’t need to be special. But if you want to ensure water doesn’t get in then you will want a dry snorkel. A dry snorkel will have an air filled bobber that will close the snorkel pipe when it is submerged. They pretty much operate in the same fashion with very little variation. Dry snorkels are more expensive but that’s not saying a lot for snorkels. Expect an average wet snorkel to cost you about $20 where as a dry one will cost around $40.

Fins can vary depending on your style of kicking, thrust of each kick and environment you will be diving. Most snorkeling fins are flat blades about 2 feet long (including the foot pocket) and don’t require any special socks or boots to use. Some fins will have open foot pockets so you can wear shoes or booties. Some fins can be split down the middle for a different kind of thrust. Depending on what your plans are and the location of the dive you choose which kind work best. Average snorkeling fins will cost around $25 for blades and $35 for softer, nicer splits.

Packages can be a great deal. For the cost of a nice mask you can often purchase an OK mask, fins and snorkel. Depending on how much you spend will often determine how much fun it’s going to be. If you decide to go the route of a package deal make sure everything fits properly before you walk out the door with it, otherwise the fun will end as soon as you get in the water. The average package cost is usually around $50 for all three items but you may regret not spending more on a mask.

If you are going to snorkel in a colder location or have the urge to do something more, like take pictures or video, you will have to add that to the general cost of your dive. A wetsuit can cost very little or quite a bit depending on your willingness to get a pre-used wetsuit or the ability to withstand the cold. Either way this is usually needed for what you would consider colder waters. As for photos or video you will have to get some type of waterproofed device or something waterproof to put it in. This cost can very greatly and be a huge cost and pain if your device accidentally gets wet where it shouldn’t.

I’ve tried multiple packages and have found out the expensive way that I’m better off paying for a good $50 split fin package and using my own $85 mask.

To sum it up:

Mask – $30

Snorkel – $20

Fins – $25

Alternately:

3-1 Package – $50

Extra stuff – $0-thousands for high end equipment

Free diving

Just like snorkeling, you use a mask, fins and snorkel but now you are adding weights to the list. Of course this equipment is specialized and much more expensive because instead of just floating at the surface you are now descending below. Free diving is inherently dangerous though because you are holding air in your lungs and leaving the place where you can get more. Most free divers will acquire specialized training in breath holding and muscle efficiency under water. With specialized training a free diver can comfortably reach depths of 100 feet or more and stay underwater for minutes at a time. In order to stay alive you will want to spend more than $50. Let’s compare the free dive list to snorkeling and you will begin to see what I mean.

Training for free diving is important. Someone who is trained can help you but it’s best if you take an official course. If you breath wrong before diving or hold your breath for too long while below or come up in the wrong manner or breath wrong after coming up you could die. Don’t try to copy anything you see unless an instructor tells you to, otherwise you could end up sleeping with the fishes, quite literally. You could be spending upwards of $500 just to be level 1 certified, $1000 to get level 2 certified. But if you “know someone”, they may give you a discounted rate. I personally dive with trained free divers and learn from them. But because I’m not trained by an instructor I severely limit my depths and time for safety reasons.

For a free diving mask you can either go with a single or dual lens mask, framed or frameless, but always look for a low-volume mask. A low volume mask is going to reduce the amount of air your nose breaths into it in order to equalize the pressure while going deeper. The more air you have for your lungs the better so less in your mask is best. I use a frameless, low-volume micro mask with small lenses that allows me to minimize the amount of air I need to replace. The typical free dive mask isn’t any more than any other mask when it comes to price though, sometimes cheaper, somewhere around $50 for a good mask.

Free dive fins are different from all other fins an obvious way, they are skinny and way longer then any others. Typically made of fiberglass or semi rigid plastics they each use a foot pocket that you normally wear with free dive socks, but sometimes barefoot too. These fins put out a lot of thrust with minimal effort but due to their rigidity, can be difficult to use over the long periods of time that you wear them. The rigidness of these fins are usually soft, medium or hard and usually take some training to get comfortable with. The cheap ones aren’t good to use and the best ones are really expensive. Try to get the best you can afford in a medium or soft stiffness until you develop the muscles to go the hard route. These fins run around $125 for inexpensive, semi-nice fins.

Snorkels for free diving are really cheap. Some divers swear by the cheapest ones they can get, specifically because they don’t want to trap any air in the tube when they dive down. Trapped air in your snorkel can cause it to try to float and pull on your mask, this causes the mask to pull from your face and leak more often. When you free dive you start with your snorkel in your mouth and spit it out when you go under, this is due to the fact that you don’t want your mouth open and sucking water when your diving down. So a negatively buoyant snorkel is way better then a positively buoyant one. The cheap ones run around $15, no big deal but a necessity.

Weights are need to make you neutrally buoyant at depth, usually 15-30 feet. If you are wearing a wetsuit of any kind you are going to need more weight to offset the floatation faction. Most weights are made of lead because it’s the most dense material you can reasonably get, making the weights smaller in size. They are mostly worn on the waist but can be utilized on the ankles, chest or even neck too. Lead weight are usually around $5 per pound regardless of their shape or use. Specialized shapes, clips or whatever may cost you more though. Say you need 10 pounds of weight, it’s going to cost you somewhere around $50. a weight belt is also needs to carry the lead. They come in rubber or webbed fibers and cost around $35. So together, the weights and belt will run you around $85.

If you are diving in comfortably warm waters than you won’t need a wetsuit at all, but the colder the water is the thicker the suit will need to be. Free dive suits are different than the rest because they are considered “open cell” suits, meaning that there is no inner layer to make getting in and out more easily, making the suit thinner, lighter and more flexible. Since you spend the majority of time at the surface of the water preparing for the next dive you get warmer than you would in SCUBA when your under for long periods of time. For this reason the suits can also be thinner. Some suits are specialized with an inner layer but they get really expensive. You can get a pretty good one for $200, this much less than the cost of most SCUBA suits.

And lastly, how are you going to get out in to the water? Boat? Jet Ski? Kayak? Surface kick from shore? Are you bringing a buoy of some kind the indicates that there is a diver down? All these things can add up the cost but are not totally necessary to have. Maybe you have an old boogie board laying around garage you can bring to the beach to help you out on the surface. Whatever else you use could be very helpful, but keep in mind that bringing a lot of things in and out of the water can be very tiring too. I most often use a kayak or my “Banks Board” (kind of a mini kayak/boogie board thing) that cost me a couple hundred dollars.

Training – $500

Mask – $50

Fins – $125

Snorkel – $15

Weights+Belt – $85

Wetsuit – $200

Alternatively:

Transportation – $0 or up to thousands

Surface floatation device – $0 up to $200

SCUBA Diving – Open Water

SCUBA Diving is a big subject, there is a lot of training and a lot of gear involved. So to keep it reasonable I’m going to minimize what it takes to be certified and to have your own gear, including a tank. Now keep in mind you can rent most of the gear from a dive shop for a pretty cheap daily fee, but the certification training is a must as no one will rent to you or fill your tank without a certification in SCUBA from an accredited company like PADI, SSI, NAUI, BSAC or CMAS to name a few. All of these companies provide essentially a similar certification based on physics and physiology but their technique in training will vary for each.

Let’s start with the training since you can’t do anything without it. I took the PADI Open Water course so I’ll reference that one. This class consists of 5 days in the classroom, 5 confined dives (usually a pool) and 4 open water dives (I made 1 beach and 3 boat dives). It cost me about $260 to take the class which included the class fee, a pic card and rental gear. There was an additional boat fee of $125 to take us to the islands off our coast as well, this also served as our final 3 open water dives with an instructor. The included rental gear contained a wetsuit, hood, BCD, 80CF (cubic foot) aluminum tank, regulator, computer, and weights. The rental gear fee did not cover all the gear I needed though. I also needed to purchase my own mask, boots, gloves, knife, fins and snorkel as well, this came to about $200 as I bought the cheap stuff that I later replaced. In all, including the class, pic card and boat fee it cost about $385 plus the $200 to buy certain personal gear that you don’t want to rent, so $585 total to get certified.

After I was certified I started out by renting some gear. For $45 I could rent all the same gear I got certified on for 3 days, 1 to rent, 1 to use and 1 to clean and return. By 2 or 3 dives I decided that this was going to be a regular thing and that I would need to purchase my own gear. I had purchased some cheap gear to get certified that I wasn’t happy with so I decide to replace those with items I was given advice on by other divers. Here is a list of what I purchased after the certification needed items and used on a regular basis:

Waterproof wetsuit: I decided to get a front zip waterproof brand wetsuit to be able to easily get in and out of as my shoulder was prone to dislocate. I spent extra money for this suit but it was warmer than everyone else’s and it was easy to get into. This cost me $400 and I still use it today so it was a great investment.

Buoyancy Compensation Device (BCD): I got an Aqualung Dimension I3 BCD for ease of use. Since my left shoulder was not great it was easier for me to use the i3 leveler by my waist in lieu of a normal inflator hose. It was a great option available to me and is still my preferred choice of BCD to dive with 5 years later so it was worth the money. Its cost me $535.

Regulator: I did not like the bubble all up in my face when using the rental gear. Luckily at the time, there was the AquaLung Kronos regulator set that had a side air ejection port, meaning that the bubbles went up the side of my mask instead of in front of my eyes. This regulator increased my vision and works great to this day. It’s is still my primary regulator set that I rely on regularly. It cost me $300.

Octopus: My ABS Oct was a cheap one. I figured I would rarely use it so I didn’t want to go to high on that one. I liked the slim design of it and purchased it for about $100.

Computer: The computer I got was on sale because it was a new style at the time. The Wisdom 2 computer with compass gave me exactly what I wanted in big readable text. This computer has been sensitive and failed me a few times but I still use it, well maybe not that original one, I’ve gone through and had it replaced or repaired several times under warranty. I got a new one at one point because I figured I got a bum unit but it wasn’t a whole lot better. Luckily the second one was on sale even cheaper so it was a good deal. Now I have my currently glitchy but working one and a backup just in case. I’ll go through those and get a different computer next time around but that may be another 5 years. It originally cost me $475.

Hood: I didn’t have my own hood yet so I bought one from Waterproof to go with my wetsuit. I figured they were designed to go together so it would have been the best fit. It worked fine and kept me warm but over time I discovered the the bib part of it did not stay sealed around my neck and was often a pain. I eventually got used to the hood coming out and it never really bothered me anyway. As long as it kept me warm I was fine with it. It cost me $30.

Light: A dive light was getting to be a necessity as I started to go night diving. I wanted a cheaper one because it was small and I figured I wouldn’t use it much. Boy was I wrong, I love night diving and quickly regretted buying the cheap one. It cost me $35 and quickly got replace by a much better $105 light.

Tank: Everyone else I dove with used a steel tank instead of the aluminum rental tanks. After talking with them about the benefits of extra capacity in a smaller tank and better buoyancy results throughout the dive I decide to try it out. Now I only dive steel tanks. My first was a Steel 100CF HP (High Pressure) tank. I loved this tank (currently missing) and will be getting another when I can justify the purchase of a 7th tank (yes, 7th). It cost me $314.

Gear bag: I had so much gear now that I needed something to carry it all in. So i got the Aqua Lung traveller bag on sale that could carry everything, save for my tank. It’s a bulky bag that fit in my truck just great and is easy to wheel around like airport luggage. But, it’s sealed like airport luggage too, so when you put your now wet gear in that bag it doesn’t dry, starts to stink after a short period of time and is a pain to clean. I replaced it with a ballistic mesh bag eventually but I use it now to store my alternate gear set for special dives. It cost me $120.

Weights: Now that I was not renting gear I need my own weights. Weights were something I took for granted, I mean, they were bags of lead, they just sit in your pocket, they do nothing else. I didn’t realize those bags were $5 per pounds and I needed 24 pounds worth, ouch. That cost me $120.

Straps and retractable cords: These are important because you need access to anything you are carrying and they need to be easily accessible, detachable and connected to all your tools. 1 for the light, 1 for the computer, one for the whatever else you’re carrying. Usually I have 2-3 and they can run between $15-$30. So I’d say it cost me about $50.

To sum it up, I spent money on the certification, the gear to get certified, a couple of rental fees to figure out what worked for me and I went on a shopping spree with gift cards and coupons galore in order to get everything I needed to be fully self sufficient gear-wise. The total cost broke down like this:

Certification – $585

Rentals – $90

New Gear – $2,479

Yikes!

SCUBA Diving – Professional

I’m not going to go through every purchase I spent to get certified as a Dive Master because it’s just too much to cover. I will sum it up though through each stage of my training, getting comfortable with diving, trying new things, experimenting, replacing things due to user error or just a bad dive. By this time I have purchased DAN (Divers Alert Network) Insurance for my whole family, got my wife to be Advanced certified, my daughter to be SEAL certified and bought gear for each of them as well. I had also started hunting by then but I’ll cover that in the next section.

Becoming certified as DM (Dive Master) meant that I had to go through a few other courses first. I had to be certified in multiple Adventure Dives, trained as a Rescue Diver and taken an Emergency First Responder course. Only then could I be considered the lowest form of professional diver, someone that could get paid to dive. As a Dive Master I can now assist in classes, lead certified divers on tours I am familiar with, lead a Discover SCUBA class and retrain divers as a refresher class. I however have not done much of any of this at all. After I became a DM I discovered that a lot of people who dive for work just don’t really want to dive for fun anymore. I didn’t like that, I like my diving and did not want to get jaded by the daily grind of seeing the same reef and fish over and over again. I didn’t want to skip a dive because it sounded boring. So I gave up in being paid to dive and decided to just have fun. The up side of this is that I don’t require another DM to show me around new sites on dive tours and I get a bit more respect when talking to other divers.

Here is what I spent to come a professional Dive Master on top of the Open Water cert:

Certifications:

Adventure Diver: This consists of multiple dive courses. At the time I needed to take 4 of them to be Adventure certified. I took Deep Water (100+feet), Underwater Photography, Dry Suit Diver and Night Diver. Each class was significantly shorter and only required a pool dive for the dry suit class. The class cost me $125 plus the $20 pic card and $125 boat fee. So total it was $170.

Advanced Diver: The advanced diver course was 1 specialty dive class, I chose Search and Recovery. This I find I still use the skills from that class in every dive I make and I’m glad there was an emphasis on it to be an advanced diver. The total for this class was another $170.

Emergency First Responder Provider: This call is important to have with or without any dive certifications. They focus on dive related injury but have massive amounts of information for all walks of life. The class was 6 hours long over the course of a day. It cost me $100 including the course and books but totally worth it. I hope I never have to use it.

Rescue Diver: This class was tied with the EFR class as the emergency training continued in the pool. Giving CPR on solid ground is one thing, giving it while going through rough waters and the surf is another. I mean they make you give CPR breathing while splashing water in your face to simulate waves hitting you. Totally worth it and my most rewarding class of them all. Definitely a must for any frequent diver. I gladly paid the $290 for that class and boat trip!

Dive Master: My final class and the ultimate goal I planned for. This class was not for fun, it was meant to be serious as you are now trying to take charge of new divers and have their life in your hands. This was serious business. The class was grueling compared to the others with it’s swim tests, rescue reminders, class teaching fundamentals and live instructing of rescue divers. This class cost $625 after the class, books and boat fees.

The gear to get these certifications was all the same gear I had used on a day-to-day basis (save for the dry suit rental) so there was no additional cost necessary. So to get certified as a professional diver it cost me a minimum of $1,787 in certifications on top of the $2,500 I spent on my own gear. Making it cost a minimum of $4,287 to become a professional diver.

But, I’m not going to stop there. I talk about not going through every purchase I made in order to become a professional diver but it’s important to know that I made a lot of purchases in order to become a knowledgable diver, not soley because I purchased the items, but because I thoroughly used them. So here is a list of what I regularly used over the course of my 300-some-odd dives in the past 5 years to become a better diver.

Nitrox Diver Certification: Although not needed, a nitrox certification allows me to make more deep dives on wrecks with less surface times between dives.

2 different styles of BCD: My Dimension i3 and a Zeagle backplate. I use each for different reasons but I prefer the Dimension.

3 different wetsuits: depending on SCUBA or free diving and how cold the water is at the time determines which one I wear.

4 different types of gloves: Depending on the temp of the water, the type of reef, if I will be grabbing things or the level of dexterity I need will determine my choice.

2 different Socks and 3 pairs of Boots: Free diving? Where socks. SCUBA? How cold will it be? Will I need to walk on rocks? The walk from the truck to the water determine most of this.

3 knives: Yes, different knives for different occasions. Will I be hunting for fish or scallops or just need it for safety cutting something I may get caught in?

4 different types of flashlights: My basic big light for just about everything, my “lightsaber” pinpoint LED for distance penetration, my backup cheap-ass light just in case and my “headlight”, a small light I strap to my BCD that points right in my walking path as I navigate to and from the water at night.

2 different regulator sets: My tried and true Kronos and my backup SCUBApro MK25 that I won in a contest.

Lots of safety tools: 2 whistles, 2 sausage style inflatable markers, multiple glow sticks and a signal mirror.

Multiple attachement devices: 5 retractable cables (they break after so many uses), 4 could lanyards and lots of $1 carabiner clips.

2 underwater slates: Turns out to be useless in the end but fun to use with new divers not familiar with hand signals.

Lots of defog: Cleaning you mask is a must, you go through lots of this stuff but eventually use toothpaste like 90% of the time.

2 different types of fins: Blades are for big kicking styles and strong thigh muscles, the split fins are good for small/fast kicks and fine tuned turning.

Equipment maintenance: Anything that holds air or where air passes through it needs to be maintained by a professional service person for safety and security means. Unless you are specifically and professionally trained I wouldn’t advise doing this yourself. It’s an unseen cost but an important one.

In all I’ve spent thousands trying to be the best diver I feel i need to be. I’ll go over the totals of everything in a minute. But first I need to go over one last dive type. One that spans all other types of diving I did before.

Hunting

While diving for fun is great and all, it’s good to go out with a reason other than enjoying the scenery. Hunting gave me the opportunity to get more in tune with the water than looking around could have ever done. Spearfishing, lobster grabbing, scallop harvesting were my main goals to get an obvious return on the great investment I made over the years.

You can read books, watch videos and hear as many stories as you want but you’ll never get the understanding that you do when you are looking for food. Each different animal behaves in a different way from any of the others. Each fish has it’s own feeding pattern, hiding spot ideas and reaction to panic. If you don’t know these things you will not be able to properly hunt. This means that if you don’t use the right gear for the specific animal you want to catch then your results will be less than underwhelming.

Lobster and scallops

My first experience with lobsters was on my 2nd ever night dive. I watched and saw how they were hunted and caught but never understood how they reacted to equipment we used. I primarily hunted lobster with scuba gear as they don’t seem to be afraid of the noise it makes. But they do react to flashlights, like cockroaches when the light comes on they scatter and run away from the light, usually swimming backwards. So what does this have to do with gear you ask? Well, when you flash a light into their eyes they back up into a hole or tunnel. So when you flash it from the front with a strong light, you can use a second, weaker light in the back to see where they may come out the other side so you can catch them off guard. Suddenly you’re looking at carrying 2 different types of lights with maybe a third strapped to your tank or BCD. Then you measure them with a tool to make sure they are of legal size and put them into a catch bag to hold them for the rest of the dive. So now to lobster dive at night you have 1-3 lights, a measuring tool and a catch bag. But in order to do any of this you need your fishing license, ocean stamp and lobster tally card.

As for the scallops, all I needed was my knife or a scallop bar and a small mesh bag to carry them in. I could take up to ten scallops per day and if I shelled them in the water that would be easy to carry. If I took the whole shell the bag would have to be bigger. Since finding scallops en-mass isn’t easy without going to specials spots I went with a minimalist approach and just used what I already had on hand. Twice I went on special scallop dive via a boat to an oil rig. On the rig I could pick and choose the largest scallops I could get my hands on but the cost was $135 for the boat fee so that washed out the return of cost for the scallops.

License – $45

Ocean stamp – $5

Lobster harvest card – $15

Lobster gauge – $3

Flashlight(s) – $100

Catch bag – $16

Scallop trip boat fee – $135 per trip

Spearfishing

The license from the lobster hunting works for fishing too so it’s no cost there. But to catch fish you need to spear it so the costs start with what you are looking to catch. I live on the coast of Southern California and I dive mainly off the beach so I’m not looking for any fish over 50lbs. Most of my fish live near the reef so my spear can’t be too powerful or I’ll go right through the fish and into the rocks behind it, destroying the tip and maybe losing the whole shaft (been there, done that).

Spearguns is where it gets ya in the wallet. You don’t want just one and you justify (very easily) to have two or three. I have 4, two bought and two I made by hand. Why not save and make them all myself? Because it’s no savings at all, just a better understanding of why you buy one already made and a feeling of self-satisfaction that you made something yourself. The materials are not cheap when you buy them one-off and the specialized tools you need most people don’t own bring up the cost a great deal.

My first speargun cost me $350, a deal for the gun I got. Big enough for the larger fish and with two rubber bands so I could remove one reduce the power if need be. At 110Cm in length, this gun proved to be too long for the tight spaces of the kelp forests I was most often swimming through so I soon needed a similar gun that was shorter. Next came my 80cm gun for $185, short enough for the kelp forest and strong enough to take out any fish I was intending to hunt. But I ran into a problem with keeping the fish on the spear. They would wriggle free and rip off the shaft because of the flopper type of tip on the shaft, so I had to switch my shaft to a slip tip that won’t destroy the fish when they wriggle around. Then after solving that problem I started to find that the bigger fish would drag me around if I shot them with a short line attached, so I had to get a reel attached to to gun to let them play the line and tire out. After all of this I now had the right size and type of gun I wanted, until I heard about roller guns.

Roller guns have the ability to use a longer band on a shorter gun by wrapping the band around a roller and doubling the band back onto itself, creating a more powerful gun in a smaller package. Great, but I like my guns and have them dialed in perfectly so now I need a new gun. But I couldn’t find a roller gun I liked at a cost that seemed reasonable to me. I had also thought about building my own gun for the fun of it so I decided to build a regular gun first, in case I messed it up, just to prove I could do it. So now I’m going to double my costs by building two guns and I need to buy a couple of tools I was missing. But this isn’t about building the spearguns, it’s about the cost involved in hunting with them so let’s get back to that.

It cost me $535 to purchase two ready made guns. It cost me $839 to successfully hand craft two specialized guns. That’s over a $300 increase, but I included the cost of tools that could be used to make more guns as well. But at this rate I would have to make several guns to offset the cost of the tools involved. It also proved to me that it was cheaper to just purchase ready made guns from now on. Until I get bored again.

110cm Speargun – $350

80cm Speargun – $185

2 New slip tip shafts – $185

2 Reels – $200

80cm hand crafted gun – $389

80cm hand crafted roller – $450

The totals

So let’s some all this up with some graphs. I spent money on myself, my wife and my daughter. I’ve only covered myself in this conversation but I’m going to show you the totals for everyone and show you the differences between each of us.

Dollars per diver

Who spent the most money? Well me of course. I got certified up to Dive Master Professional, Jenny went to Advance Diver and Jocelyn went to PADI Seal. As you can see it took a lot more for me to become a professional diver. But I have gone on hundreds of dives compared to Jenny’s 20 or so dives with her own equipment. Jocelyn never went past seals but I keep her on the DAN insurance just in case.

Dollars spent on each type of diving

Where did most of the money go? Well SCUBA has a lot more equipment than anything else so it makes sense that most of the money went here.

Dollars spent by type of item

Gear, classes, boat fees, insurance and other cost divided up to show where the money went. Again, gear is king here.

Dollars spent by vendor

This is an interesting one because I guarantee it’ll be way different for you. Most of my money was spent at Sport Chalet, which is now closed for business. I was a perpetual SCUBA student there and got SCUBA student discounts up until my Dive Master certification was complete.

Dollars spent year after year

The first year of diving was expensive. I had nothing to start with and had to build my gear inventory for myself and Jenny too. After that first year my costs dropped dramatically until I spent very little that final year. In 2015 I finished my classes and became a certified Dive Master. Between year 5 and 6 of my diving career I’ve spent hardly anything at all, pretty much just on insurance and licensing fees.

The raw totals

Here is a look at the raw totals for each graph.

The return on investment

$19,205!!?? That’s a lot of money! Yup, I agree but there is an upside to this as well. The amount of seafood I’ve fed my friends and family has deeply paid back the cost of diving. I searched the cost for fish at the time I caught them, pricing will vary based on seasonal times and demand for that item. Since the time of my research the price of lobster has doubled so it can vary a great deal.

Seafood alone is paying me back in a monetary way. But the mental therapy it provides me is much more important. It’s relaxing to me, it makes me calm and gives me a sense of peace that I can’t find anywhere outside of a therapists office. So how much does it cost to see a therapist? A quick google search tells me it’s an average of $175 per 1 hour session. My dives are a little more than 1 hour an average so lets go with 1 hour. I myself have logged 266 dives and have dived much more than that, but lets go with the recorded 266.

266 therapist sessions at $175 per hour costs $46,550.

$19,205 – $5,834 in sustainably caught seafood = $13,371

$46,550 – $13,371 = $33,179

Therapy is $33,179 more expensive than diving. Now you tell me if that’s money well spent!