96-year-old World War II veteran breaks his own scuba diving record

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/WZDX)

published 3 September 2019

For the past three years, Ray Woolley has celebrated his birthday by breaking the diving record he set 12 months earlier.

Woolley turned 96 years old on Aug. 28, and on Saturday, he went down with 47 other divers to explore the Zenobia shipwreck off the coast of Cyprus. He has held the title of world's oldest acting scuba diver since 2017, and last year, he plunged to a record depth of 40.6 meters for 44 minutes. This year, he went even further, making it to 42.4 meters for 48 minutes.

"It's just unbelievable," Woolley told Reuters. "I've been doing diving now for 59 years and these are the sort of dives that you remember because there are so many divers with you." Originally from England, the World War II veteran now lives in Cyprus, and he's looking forward to 2020. "If I can still dive and my buddies are willing to dive with me, I hope I can do it again next year," he said. Catherine Garcia

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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.