Do you log ‘gear test’ dives?

[MaxBottomtime]

I've seen divers surface for ten minutes and drop back down with the same tank, yet count it as two dives. I know an instructor who logged twelve dives in one day during her rescue class. Some were as short as three minutes, yet she proudly proclaimed she made twelve dives in one day.
If I need to check equipment, conditions or clear an anchor I will simply add that time to my real dive either before or after that dip. I would never consider counting it as a real dive.

 

[Zef]

Number of dives does not equate to time under water blowing bubbles. The reality is that if someone is s%&t show it will be evident as soon as or shortly after they splash.

A dive log is really a personal journal. If you want to log every time you go underwater breathing off a regulator then do so. Or you may choose to define for yourself a specific criteria for which you will create a log entry. Or you may decide to not keep a log at all. Each choice is as valid as the next because there is no standard across the spectrum of the diving industry.

For me, I particularly use my log to reference how much weight I last used with a specific combination of gear such as my 5.5mm wetsuit, or if I wore my 5mm shorty on top, salt water vs freshwater. Sometimes I log how I felt on a dive, if I had any problems with my gear or executing the dive itself, or if I learned something specific, or saw something particularly interesting. Sometimes I don't bother at all. As military I have moved so often that log books have gotten buried in boxes that sometimes never get unpacked....after a while you no longer remember what dive number your last log entry was.

This is one of those "small stuff" things that is not really worth sweating about.

Cheers and happy diving.
-Z

 

[boulderjohn]

I've seen divers surface for ten minutes and drop back down with the same tank, yet count it as two dives. I know an instructor who logged twelve dives in one day during her rescue class. Some were as short as three minutes, yet she proudly proclaimed she made twelve dives in one day.
If I need to check equipment, conditions or clear an anchor I will simply add that time to my real dive either before or after that dip. I would never consider counting it as a real dive.

Yep, a lot of people do cheat to get in their great dive log counts. That's why there is no point in paying too much attention to them Do what you think is right for you.

 

[Bubbles McGee]

I just did my first dive in Ontario where I live. It was a fun treasure hunt dive with our LDS. Only 15 to 20 feet max for 30 minutes. First time wearing a 7mm, hood, gloves, fresh water, 10lbs more weight. I felt it was noteworthy for sure. It was a milestone in the sense that I didn't think I was going to be able to deal well with the cold. Now I can't wait for next time.

 

[taimen]

Part of this is that I want to take training that requires 100 dives. I know it’s up to me what I log but I’m interested to hear what others do. I was only at 9 feet yesterday which hardly felt like a ‘dive’, but at the same time I learned about a dive site and visibility, got more practice with shore entries, and had the unknown of a newly rebuilt reg.

Depth and time limits are meaningless. You are building experience before you can take the training, and 100 dives is just one way to express that requirement.
Thus for this purpose, you definitely should log this dive as you learned something new. You had unusual task loading due to newly rebuilt regulator and poor visibility, and got more practice with entries as you state. Also 19 minutes at 9 feet intensively practicing skills and buoyancy is definitely a dive for your purpose, probably much more valuable than a deeper longer leisure reef dive in easy condition.

 

[TMHeimer]

Another "What do you log" thread. I've never done a test dive for my gear. I bought most of it used 13 years ago during OW course and most of it still works. "Official" dives may mean like 15' for 20 minutes, if you will. I don't know if that's any particular agency's "rule". Log what you want and let the chips fall where they may--assuming anyone ever even looks at your log book.
Nobody's EVER looked at mine, including for charters or even for courses that required a certain number of "logged" dives.

 

[Bob DBF]

I did a dive yesterday to test a new (to me) regulator I rebuilt. It ended up being a short dive because visibility was really bad. I was technically underwater on SCUBA for a few minutes but I definitely don’t want to ‘pad’ my dives... I particularly dislike when people brag about how many dives the’ve done, and then you find out the number isn’t really legit.

What do you do?

I do what I want.

As far as logs go, I am logging dives at the moment and would log the dive with the info on the reg. Probably would have stayed longer since it was a reg check, not a pleasure dive, but that's just me.

As far as padding the dive numbers, don't be the braggart, just give the number you really think counts now, and after a few years the numbers won't make any difference anyway.



Bob

 

[doctormike]

I told him that if he was really bored and looked through my logs, he would see that the hundreds of dives on that computer included a bunch of 1-3 minute dives. Those are dives where I have set up something for a class, staged deco bottles, etc. Some instructional dives are shallow, with lots of skill work, and it is common to go to the surface, talk for a couple minutes, and then go back down. I don't want to log those setup dives, and I want to combine the segments of the training dives. If I were to maintain a computer log system, I would have to go in an delete or combine all of those, which in itself is more effort than I want to put into this process.

This is more along the lines of one of those "do you use a computer dive log or not" thread, but since I do, I'll tell you how I deal with that issue and why I think that it's helpful.

I would combine those dives, and then when describing the dive in my log I would mention the issue. You never know how it will be useful or enjoyable to remember what happened in the past. I'm actually obsessive about logging, I consider it a fun activity in itself, and it's great to have every dive that I have ever done on my phone - that has been useful on more than one occasion.

For example, on a recent reef dive with a new buddy, she found that she was underweighted when we tried to descend. So we went back to the boat, I helped her get more weight, and we went on with the dive. By combining the imported dives (in MacDive), which takes about a second, I got this profile, which I find to be a helpful graphical and quantitative record of what happened that day. If, for example, we had decided not to dive after she got back to the boat, I would log the brief descent along with an explanation of what happened (especially since this was not an instabuddy but a friend).

 

[doctormike]

What I have been doing for the past couple of years is keeping separate logs for my different areas of endeavor. The log I started out with is now relegated to vacation diving--resorts, liveaboards, etc. Another entirely separate log is for training: courses, practice sessions in the lake or springs, etc. I would probably include gear testing dives in that log. If and when I start cave diving, I'll keep a separate log for that. The format of each log is different, because the same information isn't equally relevant. I couldn't care less about keeping a running total that counts every time I breathe underwater--that would be pointless.

That sounds complex, maintaining different databases. Wouldn't it be better to just log all your dives in the same database, and then if you want to be able to sort out separate types of dives use metadata? Like a tag for a training dive or something? What do you do if some dives in the future that overlap categories - like if you have a fun dive in a lake, or a training dive at a resort? Obviously, this is just a conversation, we all do whatever we like with our logs, and if this works well for you, that's great. But I like having all of my dives accessible and searchable, and available to me everywhere (the MacDive log is synced with the app on my phone).

For example, I have three CCR tags: CCR_Training, CCR_Demo and CCR_JJ. If I were, for example, to buy a different rebreather someday, I would just add a tag for that. So now, when I want to see how many hours I have on the JJ outside of training, I just search for CCR_JJ, and the number appears in the bottom of the screen. If I wanted to see the total including training, then I would just search for CCR_Training and CCR_JJ. If I trained on another unit, I would make another tag for that and then just edit the tags so that the previous CCR_Training tags became CCR_Training_JJ, to keep it consistent...

 

[TrimixToo]

To answer the OP's question, yes I do. I am interested in knowing when I tested something new. I have logged dives for new dry suits, new regs, my first argon bottle, my Blue Heat system, new computers, and so on. I also log any gear failures (rare) and mistakes I want to avoid making again (not as rare as I'd like--which would be "never"--but pretty rare). What I don't log is short, shallow, bounce dives for "I just rebuilt my regs, do they still work" or "I just replaced my wrist seals." I also never logged the dozens of dives I did to work on the local YMCA pool. (Did you know you can re-grout tile underwater? You can!)

One thing to consider as you *make* the dives is that if you will use them for future course requirements you should pay attention to what those requirements are. I had plenty of dive experience for trimix training, and not enough dives to 100' or more. I had dozens of dives to 98', 97', and even 99'., but it took a few months to get enough 100' or deeper dives in the log so I could finish the course. Going just a few feet deeper on those dives in the 90-99' region would have sped things up quite a bit, but I never saw any reason to chase dives to a particular depth before that.

These days, I log them all mostly so I can look back at them than anything else. The one thing I do wish I could do was delete things like short "this thing workin'?" dives from my dive computers...so that my paper log and computer logs could have identical dive numbers.