How often do you need to dive to maintain skills?

[Blitz]

I am spoiled, I get 4-6 dives a week. But I would go with once or twice a month as well.

 

[miked10]

I try to gt in the water 2 times a week from the time the ice is off the water until it freezes again. Since I am in Ontario Canada that is usually from FEB-MAR to Late DEC. I go on New Years Day regardless of conditions and even get under the ice a few times!!!

 

[3ddiver]

I think it all depends on the person and how comfortable they are. Comfort does not replace skills but it helps if a problem occurs to stay calm. We dive nearly every week and have found ourselves just going underwater and hunting for treasures (lost fishing gear, etc) and not much else. We have now tried to make nearly every dive some sort of a "training dive "where we practice something. This makes the dives more interesting and hopefully keeps your skills on your sleeve.

 

[Alex777]

I have noticed in the past that if I have not dived for a month (or more), I am not quite as proficient as I used to be at certain things. The difference is small, but I think the answer is: dive at least once a month to keep your skills sharp.

By extension, you should practice important skills at least once per month.

 

[scubatexastony]

Once you have enough bottom time under your belt, and ingrained the bouyancy and breathing, it shouldn't be a problem to have a long time off and return.

Bren was at home with her dad from Dec-June and was a fish when she came down for the summer. She actually joked and asked if I would make her take a refresher
She picked right back up with 70/80 fsw dives for 60-80 min, SAC of .30 or so.

Me, I dive often

tony

 

[NorthernShrinkage]

I have to agree with an early statement that its not just how often you get out but what you do . I usualy get minimum twice a week in but once a month I like to get back to basics and practice skills that generaly get neglected with my Buddy such as out of air, entanglements, mask removal, shooting a bag etc . You can pull a lot of dives off in a year and never have a problem but that one time that it hits the fan my feeling is the better prepaired you are in practicing basics the less likely you will be to panic.

 

[randini]

The Diving Safety Office at my old university only requires divers to do 12 dives per year to maintain an "active" status (in adition to periodical physicals, cpr cert, etc).

How many you should do will depend on you, but the obvious answer is whenever and as often as you can.

 

[Diver0001]

Once you get your certification, I understand that you need to continue to dive regularly to maintain your skills and learn more. But how often would you consider 'regularly' to be? Obviously vacation once or twice a year would not be 'regular', but what about maybe a couple of dives a month? Would you be able to maintain the stuff you learned and continue to become a better diver with that amount of dives? What would you consider to be the threshold for continuing to be a safe and continually improving diver?

One day a month is enough to keep up to date for most people. One day a week is enough to make significant progress, certainly in the beginning.

The last little while I've been trying to make longer dives (up to 2 hours bimbling around) and that seems to help too. it's not just about quanity. Quality is important as well. Dive in different conditions, in different locations and keep trying new things.

R..

 

[ChrisA]

It depends on how long you've been diving and how "ingrained" your dive skills have become. If you have done 1,000 dives in 10 years (average 100 dives per year) and then take off for 6 months you could jump right back in. But if you have just started diving taking off six months is way to long.

There are man divers who only dive on once a year vacations. These are "unskilled divers". They never had time to build up skills and in a year lost most of it. I figure MOST divers are like this or worse. Remember most who pass OW stop diving within a year.

So I'll say "at least once a month" for most new divers. I try to dive at least twice a week. One night after work and one day on the weekend. Sometime I can get in more. Sometimes the weekend dive is off a boat and I can get in three.

 

[kidspot]

When I first got certified a friend told me that for the first year I should dive at least 1x each week, then at least 1x each month thereafter just to ingrain and then maintain skills. I "try" to dive 1x each week or more if at possible, but that's just cuz' it's fun!

Aloha, Tim