log diving question

[madmike311x]

can you log a dive if you go by yourself or with someone who owns a boat and is certifed to dive or do you need to go on a "trip"?

 

[bennedc]

If you dive, you can log it. I was even told by my instructor that if you snorkel, you can count that as a "skin dive" but it doesn't count towards your underwater total. In my dive log, there is a place for my buddy/dive master/instructor to sign as a witness, but the boat captain can do that. To me, it's all honor system. If you do the dive, write your narrative and sign it. If you are at a location, sometimes the divemaster may have a sticker or stamp to put in your log. If you did the dive, log it. There is no dive log police to come to get you! It doesn't have to be on a trip!

 

[JMcD]

Log every dive. If you dive in a pond in your back yard with a buddy, log it. I am not a solo diver and don't particularly endorse it, but if you do, then log those as well. The guideline I use is: 15Ft 15 Min. If it is less than 15 feet for whatever reason (technical problem perhaps whatever) or less than 15 minutes for whatever reason, then I wouldn't log it... but I haven't ever had one that those guidelines actually came into play on. (Athough a dive a few weeks ago in 41degree water in my wetsuit came close!)

Just my thoughts...

 

[Guba]

Dive it, log it.

I log them all, because I treat every dive as a learning experience.

My shortest "dive" was two and a half minutes, but it still deserves a page in my logbook because it was the dive that taught me the most, regardless of how long we were in the water.
As said before, there isn't some agency that is going to come check. It's your logbook and you can treat it as seriously or simply as you deem necessary.

 

[Scottri]

It's your log book, there are no rules or laws. If you think it was a dive then log it. There is a lot of debate about what is actually a dive and what isn't but in the end it's your book. It's your personal record of your diving experiences so don't let anyone tell you what to do with it.

 

[AquaHump]

Okay when you book gets full what do you do with the pages. I am starting to have this problem.

 

[kb2ehj]

I"ve been using the 8.5" x 5.5" log sheets for sometime now. What I did is went to my local office supply store and purchased a three ring binder that would hold this size paper and some divider tabes. Each year I take all the log pages and transfer them to the three ring binder with an appropriate divider for that year.

This way all my log sheets are in order and organized by year in one place. I also log electronically in MS Excel, mostly to keep track of total bottom time and other calculations I like having (ie I also keep track of my Hyperbaric exposure times (I work part time for the Duke Hyperbaric Center)) and log in SCUBase as yet another backup source and a better way to organize dive buddy info.

Just the way I do it, may not be the best but it works for me.

 

[Walter]

Okay when you book gets full what do you do with the pages. I am starting to have this problem.

Leave them in the book and start volume 2. Now is the time to look at your current log and be thinking about staying with that format or moving to something different. I'm on my 5th different style of logbook. I wasn't happy with the 1st because it had little room to write and only held 32 dives. My 2nd holds about 100 dives, but still had little room for a narrative. My 3rd held about 50 - 60 dives, but had lots of room to write about dices. I was pretty happy with that and filled several of them before moving on to my 4th style, a lined record book I picked up in an office supply store. That gave me the flexibility I needed, sometimes putting 5 dives on a single page and sometimes using 5 pages for a single dive. Those logs hold between 120 - 190 dives. My current style is the same as my 4th, except it is much bigger. The pages are bigger and there are more of them. The first one of that style had 300 pages and holds about 460 dives. My current log has 500 pages, it'll likely hold between 700 - 800 dives when I'm finished. So the questions you should ask are, what do I want my log book to do? Is my current log accomplishing this? Could a different format do it better?

 

[Walter]

I also log electronically in MS Excel, mostly to keep track of total bottom time and other calculations I like having

I also log mine in Excel. I'm interested in seeing how you've organized yours. Are you willing to share?

 

[Cudabait]

can you log a dive if you go by yourself or with someone who owns a boat and is certifed to dive or do you need to go on a "trip"?

Mike,

Just log everything you do. It'll serve as a personal record of your diving activity history, regardless of nature. Yes, you can sign it, or better, any witness can sign it. I've found that the three ring loose leaf log with ample room for detail works best for me. It also allows me to remove and catalog the excess pages.


Regards,