What constitutes a dive?

[jar546]

......................After our second dive we met the two intrepid owners of the gear as they were about to descend. How were their dives, I asked... they were boring as they were being spent on the 20 platform, 20 minutes at a time. WHY??? It seems that they were "working" on their Dive Master and had to accrue a certain number of dives. I still smile and shake my head when I think about it.

These are the kind of dives that can be meaningless. They were in an amazing place but chose to work on numbers rather than the experience.

Playing the devils advocate, however if they were working on skills such as buoyancy, DM required skills, etc. I can see the value for them and they of course still count.

I just know if I ever counted pool dives I would feel as though I was cheating.

There are open water dives that I never counted either such as: Surfacing at a lake after 30 minutes because of an equipment issue with my dive buddy. We were at the surface for about 20 minutes until the issue was resolved. We were far from shore and the dive back took 13 minutes. I only counted that as 1 dive but I know plenty of people who would have taken that as 2.

 

[Searcaigh]

IIRC BSAC rules when I started was 6M at 20 minutes

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I'm sensing a theme here...

Yup ... I once knew a gal who logged 60 dives in five weeks ... all on Saturdays and Sundays ... she was working toward getting her numbers up so she could become a scuba instructor ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Kupu]

Agree that for a personal logbook anybody is free to log whichever dives they feel worthy, and can be a great way to keep a record of conditions, temps, equipment setup, etc for personal reference. But putting in minimum effort only to be able to log a dive for DM or instructor logged dive requirements, bragging rights, etc will not usually earn respect or necessary experience.

As for specific agencies, the PADI General Standards and Procedures states:

During open water dives, have divers spend the majority of time at 5 metres/15 feet or greater, and breathe at least 1400 litres or 50 cubic feet of compressed gas or remain submerged for at least 20 minutes.

 

[RTee]

Agree that for a personal logbook anybody is free to log whichever dives they feel worthy, and can be a great way to keep a record of conditions, temps, equipment setup, etc for personal reference. But putting in minimum effort only to be able to log a dive for DM or instructor logged dive requirements, bragging rights, etc will not usually earn respect or necessary experience.

As for specific agencies, the PADI General Standards and Procedures states:

During open water dives, have divers spend the majority of time at 5 metres/15 feet or greater, and breathe at least 1400 litres or 50 cubic feet of compressed gas or remain submerged for at least 20 minutes.

...and some folks as part of their OW certification dives can surprise you by hitting all three simultaneously

 

[Aaron528]

I could be wrong but it seems like the OP was asking about standards, not necessarily what individual diver's opinions are about what constitutes a dive. My understanding is that PADI has standards for what constitutes a dive that can legitimately be applied to the minimum required for divemaster/instructor. I believe the minimum numbers are 60/100? Recently the requirements for DM were changed to a min of 30 to start DM with 60 min to complete? And what constitutes a dive is also defined somewhere in the standards, at least as it applies to those certs. Beyond satisfying course requirements, I agree it's subjective. But it does make me wonder why people bother to put a number to their dives, if nobody agrees what that means. If there is an instructor/course director looking at this thread I'd be interested to see the comments.

 

[gcbryan]

It's interesting that this is even a problem/concern as the minimum requirements for most scuba related matters are low enough that by the time you are ready for more training you should already have more than enough legitimate dives in the first place.

 

[g1138]

My recreational instructor says she'll only counts logged-dives that are non-pool, and a minimum of 15' for 10 mins (or what ever NAUI states)
My scientific instructor on the other hand counts a logged-dive as any (non-pool) submerged activity on compressed air.

Having said that my shortest dive was 16ft for 9mins, off a harbor to collect bags of sand. Word to the wise, bring a lift bag if you're collecting 3x gallon sized bags of sand. Unless you like playing underwater hop-skotch between the reefs.

Back to your question about agency std's. I think each agency has a small variation in time, depth, and wording of what counts as a dive. All agencies don't count pool dives though, I believe.
In general 15ft for 10mins is the smallest agency minimum I've ever heard of.

Edit: For my scientific cert class we counted a 15min aquarium dive as one dive.
I think any dive outside a swimming pool, can be counted as a dive.
So aquariums, lakes, oceans, rivers etc. etc. are all fair game for your log book.

 

[fire_diver]

Well, the OP's questions could be answered in a single, short post. But what fun is it to simply say "yes, yes". there his questions are answered, nothing else to say. Kinda boring.

The fact that there exists an aquarium cert (as an alternative to an OW cert, not continuing ed.) then by default, confined water such as pools would have to be counted as dives even though most are only a few feet deep and many times done on surface suplied air.

 

[Kingpatzer]

To me what makes a dive a "dive" is flexible.

Is 5' for 5 minutes a dive?

How about if it is 5' for 5 minutes in 45 degree black water and you have to find and attach a line to a boat motor that is stuck in the mud and there are known to be large snapping turtles in the pond? I think I'd count it.

How about if you're diving in a pool, but the pool is Nemo 33 and you're going the whole way to the bottom and entering into deco obligation?

To me there aren't any clear bright magic lines for dives and not dives. If you're on scuba then it's potentially a dive in my book. To log it or not from there depends on the specifics.