A BRITISH World War II veteran, who is the world’s oldest scuba diver, has broken his own record with a dive off Cyprus. Great-grandfather Ray Woolley, who has been diving for 59 years, celebrated his 96th birthday by exploring a shipwreck site for 48 minutes at a depth of 42.4 meters, equivalent of a 15-story building.

Woolley, originally from Port Sunlight on Merseyside who now lives in Cyprus, surpassed his previous record of 40.6 meters for 44 minutes, which he set last September at the same site.

It is the third year in a row Woolley, who turned 96 Wednesday, has set a record after previous bests in 2017 and 2018.

The 2017 record was 41 minutes with a maximum depth of 38.1 meters, where he first became the world’s oldest diver at 94.

Woolley, who was a radio operator during the war, was joined by 47 other divers to explore the Zenobia.

The Zenobia, a cargo vessel laden with trucks that sank off of Larnaca in 1980, is a popular dive site.

Underwater images showed Woolley and other divers sitting on the hull of the submerged ship as fish, and the occasional turtle, swam by.

“It’s just unbelievable. I’ve been diving now for 59 years and these are the sort of dives that you remember because there are so many divers with you,” Woolley said, of the other 47 divers who swam with him.

“If I can still dive and my buddies are willing to dive with me I hope I can do it again next year,” Woolley told Reuters after the event organized by the Larnaca municipality and the town’s tourism board.

A documentary on his life, “Life Begins at 90,” will be shown at the Bosnia-Herzegovina film festival in September.

“I refuse to accept the fact that I’m getting old,” Woolley says in the trailer.

(SD-Agencies)