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LIGHTHOUSE POINT, Florida (5 July 2007) --
There's nothing technically wrong with an octogenarian strapping on tanks and descending to the ocean floor, but most people wouldn't consider scuba diving at such an advanced age.
Then again, Ray McAllister is not your average 84-year-old.
The retired Florida Atlantic University professor of ocean engineering started exploring the underwater world when scuba diving was in its infancy in the early 1950s. McAllister racked up 5,000 logged dives in the mid-1990s, then quit counting. He has survived a free ascent from 200 feet, watched barracudas nip his fins, salvaged shipwrecks and mapped reefs along the coast of South Florida.
And for the past four years, McAllister has made dives with a group of technically savvy dive buddies every year on his birthday.
The Professional Association of Diving Instructors puts no upper-age limit on scuba divers. "There's a minimum age but no maximum," said Dave Wals, an education consultant for PADI. "It can be done for a long, long time."
Daniel Nord, director of medical services for the Divers Alert Network, said he has heard of individuals diving at age 90. As long as a person has healthy lungs and can breathe, they can scuba dive, said Jed Livingstone, vice president of training for the Tampa-based National Association of Underwater Instructors.
As a precaution because of his age, McAllister, also known as "Doc," limits his diving depth to about 60 feet.
"He lives to dive," friend Joe Masterson said of McAllister. "He's a very independent old cuss."
So on his 84th birthday last week, McAllister met seven diving friends on the Sea Horse, Daryl Wilmoth's 47-foot converted shrimper that Wilmoth keeps tied to the dock behind McAllister's house in Lighthouse Point. Dive gear, food and a birthday cake were loaded aboard before Wilmoth fired up the engines and cruised slowly toward Hillsboro Inlet.
Calm seas and sunny weather greeted the divers as they attached regulators to tanks and unpacked fins, masks and wet suits from gear bags. Inside the cabin of the Sea Horse, McAllister pulled on a wet suit top but left on a pair of long, gray trousers to cover his legs.
Pete Kendrigan turned on his GPS-equipped laptop and called up his Florida Nearshore program to display a picture of the reef below the boat. He told Wilmoth where to drop anchor — in the sand just west of the reef. No guesswork on this dive.
Our first dive spot in 60 feet of water was named Dr. Ray's Favorite Reef. Sitting with his legs hanging over the side of the anchored boat, McAllister pulled on fins and a mask, then strapped on a tank and slid into light blue water with his longtime dive buddies, who stayed with McAllister while he was underwater. The reef was a rocky mound rising over the sand, adorned with barrel sponges and waving sea fans and schools of colorful fish.
Visibility was good, and there was very little current. McAllister stopped before reaching the reef and sat on the sand bottom. Facing the surface with his tank in the sand, he blew bubble rings, the diving equivalent of smoke rings, which grew wider as they floated to the surface.
After the bubble-ring show, McAllister swam slowly along the west side of the reef, then paused and motioned for Masterson to help him. The inflation valve on his buoyancy compensator had stuck open, lifting McAllister toward the surface.
Masterson held the release valve open to let the air out while McAllister tried to spell out an explanation in the sand, but they finally decided to abort the dive and fix McAllister's gear.
Back on the Sea Horse, Masterson cleaned out McAllister's inflation valve with a hose and tested it. After all the divers were back on board, Wilmoth hoisted the anchor and ran the Sea Horse south to a reef off Anglin's Pier.
This reef was named for Dom Orlando, a late member of the Under Sea Adventurers Dive Club in which McAllister remains active. On this dive — 45 feet to the top of the reef and 60 feet to the bottom — McAllister stayed down until most of his air supply was depleted, watching midnight parrotfish, wrasses, butterflyfish, bermuda chubs and other fish mingling around the reef while friend Lone Souza remained close by.
The current picked up toward the end of the dive. Souza helped McAllister fight the flowing water while Masterson led us back to the anchor line.
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