William Lambert turned 106 on Saturday, celebrating with family and friends at Herrick House in Beverly, Massachusetts, the assisted living community where he lives. He's not just another centenarian marking a milestone birthday — Lambert is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest male scuba diver, a title he earned by strapping on a tank and dropping into an Illinois lake when he was already 100 years old.
Lambert set the record on September 5, 2020, completing a 27-minute nitrox dive to an average depth of 40 feet at Pearl Lake in South Beloit, Illinois, according to Boston 25 News. What makes the achievement especially striking is how late Lambert came to the sport in the first place. He didn't take up scuba diving until November 2018, when he was 98 years old and walked into an Illinois dive shop on what was essentially a whim, practicing underwater breathing techniques with long hoses in training pools long before he ever strapped on a scuba tank, according to Divernet.
A Late Start, A Fast Certification
Lambert earned his open-water scuba certification in Cozumel, Mexico, in February 2019, at age 98, after training two to three times per week under the guidance of instructors from Loves Park Scuba, per Scuba Diving Magazine. That training, the outlet notes, was provided free of charge by the local dive shop operator. Most people who chase scuba diving records have decades of underwater experience behind them; Lambert had barely a season's worth.
To stay in shape for deep-water diving as a centenarian, Lambert kept up a daily exercise regimen that included riding a stationary bicycle for 30 minutes, six days a week, the same outlet reports. That kind of cardiovascular conditioning matters because diving medical clearances for seniors prioritize cardiac health evaluations above nearly everything else.
A Trial Run Before the Record Attempt
Before his 100th-birthday record dive, Lambert marked his 99th birthday in September 2019 with a 20-minute dive to 32 feet at the same Pearl Lake, accompanied by 30 support divers and friends, according to BARE Sports. During that dive, he explored a school bus that had been deliberately submerged in the lake — a kind of dress rehearsal for the record he'd chase the following year.
Lambert's record broke new ground internationally. Before he claimed the title in 2020, the Guinness World Record for world's oldest male scuba diver belonged to British World War II veteran Ray Woolley, who completed a 48-minute dive to 139 feet on the Zenobia wreck off Cyprus at age 96 in 2019, according to Divernet. Woolley had held and broken his own record annually for three straight years before Lambert took the title.
How Lambert Compares to Other Record Holders
The equivalent female record belongs to American Jane Rhodes Martin, who completed an official dive in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, in March 2022 at 94 years and 364 days old, per Guinness World Records. Martin didn't start diving until age 55, after retiring from a teaching career in New York, offering a striking contrast in how late in life both record holders came to the sport.
Official Guinness World Record standards require candidates to complete an open-water dive reaching a minimum depth of about 39.4 feet and lasting at least 30 minutes in the presence of a certified instructor, Divernet reports. Those criteria exist specifically to prevent casual or shallow pool immersions from qualifying as record dives.
The Record Remains a Moving Target
Lambert's mark is still very much in the crosshairs of other centenarian divers around the world. In August, 100-year-old retired Spanish police officer Modesto Villaverde applied to Guinness World Records and began planning an autumn open-water dive in Lanzarote in an attempt to break Lambert's title, according to Divernet. Villaverde has dived in the Red Sea before, at age 96.
The path to a record attempt runs through rigorous medical screening. In September 2022, 100-year-old San Antonio resident Arthur Graf Jr. received medical clearance from a cardiologist and the Divers Alert Network before attempting his own record dive, according to MySA. Cardiac fitness is the primary factor in those evaluations, since heart disease is the leading cause of diving fatalities.
Back in Beverly, Lambert now lives at Herrick House, an 86-unit assisted living community on the upper campus of Beverly Hospital, operated under Beth Israel Lahey Health, according to information from Mass.gov. The facility, which opened in 1996, provides 24-hour licensed nursing care — a fitting home base for a man whose life story keeps proving that age is no reason to stay out of the water.
