Furner
Contributor
My PADI crewpack came with a logbook, but is this a good one to use? I saw somewhere that there were waterproof books. Do I need to try to use the same book from the start, or can I switch books at some point?
Good log book?
- Thread starter Furner
- Start date
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diver_paula
Contributor
Furner,
You can change log books as often as you like. Each person will have a different opinion on what makes a good log book. If you are a newer diver, you may want one with a bit more room to write comments in. It will help track air consumption improvement, weight changes, new gear, etc. But, if you tend not to write much a log book with one or two lines per dive may work well.
BTW - I haven't seen you in the Great Lakes Wrecking Crew club. If you haven't already, check it out. It's a great place to find Michigan buddies and friends.
Paula
You can change log books as often as you like. Each person will have a different opinion on what makes a good log book. If you are a newer diver, you may want one with a bit more room to write comments in. It will help track air consumption improvement, weight changes, new gear, etc. But, if you tend not to write much a log book with one or two lines per dive may work well.
BTW - I haven't seen you in the Great Lakes Wrecking Crew club. If you haven't already, check it out. It's a great place to find Michigan buddies and friends.
Paula
The thing that worried me about switching books is that then some of my past experience would be in a different book, or do I just carry two books? Or copy all my old info into the new books? What about the signatures in the old book?
Sorry for bothering you with all the probably obviously newb questions.
Sorry for bothering you with all the probably obviously newb questions.
diver_paula
Contributor
Furner:
Furmer,
I wouldn't copy information from one book to the other. As the years go by and you continue to dive, you will probably end up with several log books. Or if you stay with something similar to the PADI logs, you'll end up with more pages than will fit in one 3-ring binder.
You will have to decide whether to take multiple books with you. I have several log books and usually take the books that have information pertinent to the dive I'm going on.
Paula
Iruka
Contributor
Some of the best log books I've seen have been "homemade"....where the person decided just what they wanted on the log and printed them out, with a nice color scheme or whatever. As far as bringing log books with you, probably just the most recent one would be fine, unless you have some specific dive background that you need to prove to a particular dive op, or if you're repeating a visit to a certain area, it would be nice to have notes along pertinent to that location.
One potential problem with the "tiny" log books that you sometimes see is that if you have a really interesting dive, there's not much room to take notes of what you've seen. An ordinary binder & notebook paper gives you the flexibility to write as little or as much as you want. I haven't actually written down on paper my last 3,000 or so dives, but every one of them is logged in my PC, and I could print them out if there was ever a need to do so. Basically, the log book is for YOU, so it can be pretty much whatever you want (although once in a while a dive shop might want to see it for evidence of deep diving or whatever...but that's not very common.)
One potential problem with the "tiny" log books that you sometimes see is that if you have a really interesting dive, there's not much room to take notes of what you've seen. An ordinary binder & notebook paper gives you the flexibility to write as little or as much as you want. I haven't actually written down on paper my last 3,000 or so dives, but every one of them is logged in my PC, and I could print them out if there was ever a need to do so. Basically, the log book is for YOU, so it can be pretty much whatever you want (although once in a while a dive shop might want to see it for evidence of deep diving or whatever...but that's not very common.)
WarmWaterDiver
Contributor
My wife used MS Excel to make log book page templates - can't beat the price or convenience, and you can put fields in for things you want to log, instead of what's in one or another log book available for purchase.
Next step would be to get really fancy and embed calculations and/or macros so when you transfer from paper to spreadsheet, your RMV etc. is calculated - we haven't gotten that far yet, we keep spending too much time & effort at that stuff called WORK. Gotta do something to pay for dive vacations though.
Next step would be to get really fancy and embed calculations and/or macros so when you transfer from paper to spreadsheet, your RMV etc. is calculated - we haven't gotten that far yet, we keep spending too much time & effort at that stuff called WORK. Gotta do something to pay for dive vacations though.
Trisha
Contributor
Also, I bought a small photo album and took it apart for the photo sleeves, punched extra holes in them to fit my SSI logbooks, and added them in. They will work fine for pictures and souvenirs, but right now they hold c-cards in place (with a little tape.)
A good place for insurance cards, copy of passport, immunization records, perscriptions, etc.
A good place for insurance cards, copy of passport, immunization records, perscriptions, etc.
jlwest63
Guest
WarmWaterDiver:
I am new an want to make my own log book. Would anyone be willing to e-mail me or post somewhere what there templates look like? I am not sure what I would wnat to keep in one and if I could get ideas of other layouts it would help.
If not would you know where I could see screen shots of some log pages?
Thanks.
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