First real boat dive coming up Log questions
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I requested my Advanced card as soon as I had exactly 25 dives. I already had the required specialties. And I started Rescue Diver with 41 dives logged.
Anyway, the real point is that your post implied there is no reason to log dives after 20. At least, with regard to keeping an accurate count. Obviously, there are other reasons one might log dives beyond just keeping count. I was simply trying to illustrate that there may be very good reason to keep accurate count up until at least 100.
After 100, maybe nobody cares. Well, except, of course, for the ScubaNati who use the number in your profile as refutation to statements that they can't refute with actual data...
Just a thought here: If having 25 dives or 40 dives or 50 dives or even 100 dives is a prerequisite for some more advanced course or certification, and the difference between you being able to meet the prerequisite and not meet the prerequisite comes down to how you chose to count those first four certification dives, then I would suggest taking a step back, considering whether those "prerequisite" numbers would serve you better if interpreted as absolute minimums, and then getting a few more dives under your belt. Maybe I'm different from most people in this respect, but I never liked feeling I "just squeezed by" in meeting ANY requirement--in diving or anything else. If the bar is set at 25, I'll wait until I have 30. If the bar is set at 50, I'll wait until I have 60. Or something like that.
BTW, I'm not directing this at you, Stuart.
BTW, I'm not directing this at you, Stuart.
They have tightened things up a bit there after a few incidents and investigations. Sounds like they took you on a nice "checkout dive" to start with.That reminds me that my "fifth" dive--my first dive after receiving my OW certification in California--was in Cairns, Queensland. I did not show them a logbook (which would have been empty but for the four certification dives), but I did tell them it was my very first dive after certification.I think the bottom of the reef where they took me was about 10 meters.
A very wise statement and completely true. Dive count/ hours underwater can only ever be an indication and not an accurate measure of experience. As stated many times before, 30 inland quarry dives doesn't prepare you for blue water ocean dives. Clear vis warm water doesn't' prepare you for low vis cold dives. Each environment is different, provides different challenges and differing skills.
When I carry out training courses I prefer the attendees to have played with the equipment before hand, read the and "had a go" This means that (in simple terms) I'm not starting from "here is the on switch" but for a position of some understanding. I myself have attended week long professional courses, for the majority of the course it might be that I'm just covering stuff I already knew but there is often some nugget of information I get that makes that course worth while.
On liveaboards I frequently dive on the minimum bar is sometimes 30 dives more often 50. I remember what I knew at 30/ 50 dives verses what I knew at 100, 150, 200 and so on. Not only had my skills improved (although the increments get subtly smaller) but you have the benefit of "experience" However the minimum standards have to be set somewhere, but someone with 30 dives (or even as we found out on the last trip 300 dives) might not have experienced a suddenly current which turned a bimble around a reef into a adrenaline fulled drift (fantastic fun and the best dive from my perspective but not theirs)
My point is that the minimum standards, are just that THE MINIMUM. I've always held the opinion that one should have a period of consolidation between each course - preferably diving without an instructor/guide putting into practice what you have learnt. It shouldn't' be a race to see how quickly you can get from C Card to C Card but rather choosing at which point you will get the greatest benefit from each course. There is always a flip side in that the longer you leave between further training the more time you have to potentially develop bad habits
---------- Post added September 2nd, 2015 at 03:06 PM ----------
You're possibly correct in that statement, although in my experience some places take into account No of dive vs years diving as a rule of thumb about your current skills ( much like when did you last dive) - is someone with 300 dives over 10 years or 300 over 3 hears more likely to need less attention?
My good friend stopped counting dives (he claims) around 1999 and (he thinks) 5000 dives Its always good to be around the table when you are asked for your certs at the start of the trip. The first card he puts down is his IDC Staff instructor which was issued in 1985 - the look from some trip leaders that he was training instructors before they were born is always priceless. Its always fascinating to hear how instructors on boats make their first judgement on peoples abilities as divers before they dive (and how they evaluate people through out the first few dives) I certainly couldn't' be a dive Pro and put up with the cr@p a lot of them get from some divers
Understood. No worries. And my point was not about whether to count or not count the 4 OW training dives. An earlier post implied there is no reason to count at all, once you're past 20 dives. My point was simply to say that, however you choose to count them, it seems like there might be good reason to keep counting until you have at least recorded 100. Whether you choose to count those first 4 or not does seem pretty irrelevant.
As far as meeting the minimums go, my approach is to know what they are and decide when to proceed based on my own feeling of comfort. I want to take Rescue. It requires 40 dives. I suspect that nobody anywhere can justify why 40 is necessary, but 39 is not good enough and 41 is really more than necessary. That's an arbitrary number that someone made up to represent an expectation of where an average, or maybe lowest common denominator, diver will be after that many dives. I know I can't start Rescue with less than that. Does that mean I would start it as soon as I have 40? No - not necessarly. But, it does mean that, once I have 40, if I DO feel totally comfortable with everything up to that point and I feel like I'm ready to start Rescue, then I'm no more going to look at that arbitrary number and give myself another arbitrary number of 50 before I start than I would try to start before I've met the minimum prereqs. If it takes me until 100 dives before I feel comfortable and ready to take the next class, fine. If I feel ready when I've met the minimum, that's fine, too.
I think with all standards, there has to be a line drawn in the sand somewhere. My guess is that 40 was picked as a point where people would have been diving enough to get the basics dialled in enough that the task loading of rescue situations will not overload the students to the point of being unsafe. Why was it 40 and not 50 or 60? Who knows?
With dive numbers in particular, the quality of dives can make a huge difference with regards to the experience gained:
1) depth
2) visibility?
3) water temp?
4) current?
5) surface swell?
I would bet that divers who have done poor vis, cold water ocean dives have learned a good deal more in the same amount of dives than those who are continually diving in warm, high vis conditions with mill pond like surface conditions.
With dive numbers in particular, the quality of dives can make a huge difference with regards to the experience gained:
1) depth
2) visibility?
3) water temp?
4) current?
5) surface swell?
I would bet that divers who have done poor vis, cold water ocean dives have learned a good deal more in the same amount of dives than those who are continually diving in warm, high vis conditions with mill pond like surface conditions.
I requested my Advanced card as soon as I had exactly 25 dives. I already had the required specialties. And I started Rescue Diver with 41 dives logged.
Anyway, the real point is that your post implied there is no reason to log dives after 20. At least, with regard to keeping an accurate count. Obviously, there are other reasons one might log dives beyond just keeping count. I was simply trying to illustrate that there may be very good reason to keep accurate count up until at least 100.
After 100, maybe nobody cares. Well, except, of course, for the ScubaNati who use the number in your profile as refutation to statements that they can't refute with actual data...
I don't think you were referring to me as a SCUBA Nazi as that would be ludicrous. I am the antithesis of the SCUBA Nazi!!!
Implication noted but not intended. I am not trying to start a log vs no log
debate but my real intention was that the difference 20 and 24 dives was irrelevant. Sure if you are chasing cards in a hurry then maybe, otherwise I maintain nobody cares much. I have a 100% correct log along with a 100% correct count of my time underwater. So my log is very type A in that respect, which actually is quite strange since that is the exact opposite of the way I dive. Very laissez faire, spontaneous, relaxed, rule free, same ocean same day kind of guy. Most of the time anyway as I do recognize that penetrating the hold on the San Francisco Maru requires a lot more attention to detail than 60 feet reef in Cayman.If we want to get all serious on this topic, then I agree with the above. In my life as a paramedic we have long since gotten away fro "logging hours" as a method of training. We now focus less on that and more on experience. So to advance as a diver I would offer that 60 or a 100 or 500 dives in a quarry can get you to divemaster, instructor or any other hero type certification, but the first time our hero is faced with the current at Blue Corner I suspect they would be as useless as a 4 jump chump fresh out of Open Water. If that is the case then the log becomes very meaningful and should have a validation component. I don't agree with this, but the point remains a valid discussion point.
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PADI also requires 100 for solo ("Self Reliant") and upon completion of Instructor course. So it would make sense to log at least one's first 100. The required 20 for Rescue was reduced to 0 a few years ago. 40 seems about right to me for Rescue, but earlier if the diver is ready would be my advice. Perhaps at least a few dives before taking AOW, but that's a very old topic.
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