Instructors - what is acceptable for a verified dive log?

[The Logic Theorist]

I'm not an instructor either, but I have an experience regarding logbook validity that I'd like to share:

My AOW dives are not signed, not by a dive buddy, not by an instructor. The instructor was supposed to sign them at the end of the weekend, but I was so exhausted I completely forgot. I talked to the shop about getting them signed at a later date, and they'd said that would be fine, but a month later on a dive trip with them I had a not so good experience and decided I would most likely not dive with them again. Because of that, I haven't been back to the shop and I still haven't gotten those dives signed. It's been about a year now, I don't know if I could even get them to sign them at this point.

This past November I was in Malta and wanted to do a specialty course. I was looking at the Wreck Diver course, and had already logged one training wreck dive as part of AOW. The dive shop, however, would not accept that as that dive in my logbook was not signed, even though there are only 5 unsigned dives in the book and the comments section specifies which AOW dive it was and what skills were practiced. They would have required me to do all 4 dives for the specialty. The only one they would accept was the deep dive because it's required for AOW, so even though it wasn't signed they knew I'd actually done it. I ended up taking the Deep specialty instead.

I'm somewhat concerned, because of this, that if I were to try to get a DM cert or tech diving cert those 5 dives would not count towards my total.

 

[pir8]

I'm not an instructor either, but I have an experience regarding logbook validity that I'd like to share:

My AOW dives are not signed, not by a dive buddy, not by an instructor. The instructor was supposed to sign them at the end of the weekend, but I was so exhausted I completely forgot. I talked to the shop about getting them signed at a later date, and they'd said that would be fine, but a month later on a dive trip with them I had a not so good experience and decided I would most likely not dive with them again. Because of that, I haven't been back to the shop and I still haven't gotten those dives signed. It's been about a year now, I don't know if I could even get them to sign them at this point.

This past November I was in Malta and wanted to do a specialty course. I was looking at the Wreck Diver course, and had already logged one training wreck dive as part of AOW. The dive shop, however, would not accept that as that dive in my logbook was not signed, even though there are only 5 unsigned dives in the book and the comments section specifies which AOW dive it was and what skills were practiced. They would have required me to do all 4 dives for the specialty. The only one they would accept was the deep dive because it's required for AOW, so even though it wasn't signed they knew I'd actually done it. I ended up taking the Deep specialty instead.

I'm somewhat concerned, because of this, that if I were to try to get a DM cert or tech diving cert those 5 dives would not count towards my total.

I can't speak for all instructors but I think most of us would have counted them, at least I probably would have after talking to you. Come up to Dutch Springs in Pa. this summer and I'll count them towards whatever class you want to take.

 

[ClayJar]

I'm somewhat concerned, because of this, that if I were to try to get a DM cert or tech diving cert those 5 dives would not count towards my total.

As for me, you could clip any five pages (or ten, or...) out of my logbook, and it will have no discernible effect on my qualification for a DM, solo, or other such course. (When I started my most recent course, I had about 130 more dives than the requirement. :biggrin

If five unsigned dives are the difference between getting in a course and being excluded, perhaps you could go back to the instructor and get them signed. I'd personally think it a much better solution to simply dive more and thereby make them irrelevant. (I suppose I like my diving experience to be as redundant as my gear.)

 

[The Logic Theorist]

I'd personally think it a much better solution to simply dive more and thereby make them irrelevant. (I suppose I like my diving experience to be as redundant as my gear.)

That's the plan at this point (I definitely plan to dive as often as possible)... but I'm not exactly in a prime diving location, so each dive is fairly expensive for me. 5 more dives could easily be $500 more dollars, if not more than that.