95-year-old World War II vet breaks scuba diving record he set last year

(Image credit: Ed Giles/Getty Images)

published 7 September 2018

Ray Woolley has spent the last six decades diving, and he doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.

Woolley turned 95 in August, and to celebrate, he went diving off the coast of Cyprus on Saturday for 44 minutes at a depth of 133 feet. With this dive, he broke his own record set last year of 41 minutes at 125 feet, and he remains the world's oldest scuba diver. "I am trying to prove to myself, and I hope to other people, that exercise, especially when you are getting to around my age, is most important to do," he told reporters.

Woolley, originally from England, was a radio operator in the Royal Navy during World War II, and now lives in Cyprus. As part of his dive on Saturday, Woolley explored a cargo shipwreck, and he told the other divers who joined him the experience was "great. It's lovely to break my record again and I hope if I can keep fit, I will break it again next year with all of you."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.