Logging power snorkeling as a dive?

[gamon]

During some of my diving centered trips I bring my gear including a 19cf pony bottle and sometimes when not doing an "official scuba dive", I do some relatively shallow diving off of the shore in depths perhaps up to 20 feet using nothing but mask, snorkel, fins and the pony bottle. I also do the same when home, as there are several areas near my home and it's not always worth lugging all the gear. Yes in case you're wondering I'm positively buoyant although the tank helps to some degree, and I might grab a rock if I can find one nearby, here in the Mediterranean it's not tough to find one.

A typical "power snorkeling dive" might be 20 minutes long, and include periods of surface swimming then a drop to depth and breathing off the bottle for a few minutes, then back to the surface, swim to another promising spot and drop down again.

Would this be considered a "loggable dive?". I know there's no logbook police and no I'm not considering some sort of professional career so what I write in there doesn't matter for all practical purposes, just sort of wondering how others might handle this. Do you not log the dive at all, log only the parts when you're breathing compressed air, in which case do you count all the drops to depths as separate dives or do you total them up?

 

[bradlw]

What you are doing IS SCUBA diving! Unusaal maybe, but still diving and still SCUBA

I've logged two (I think) purely snorkel dives that were especially epic. One was at Grand Cayman. Was there on a scuba vacation but my buddy and I decided to do a shore dive by snorkel. We were in the water for hours...huge Tarpon, awesome reef with deep 'canyons', large area.... it was the best dive of the trip. Another was when I was on a SCUBA vacation to Bimini. Another one that was the best dive of the trip.

To be clear I haven't logged every snorkel dive...just the ones that were epic....not that that even matters.

If it means something to you, then Why not? It's not like your total dive count is regulated in some way. From a recreational perspective anyway, the logbook is really only like a personal journal. It's your memory book.
And besides even a snorkel dive is still a dive.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

Power snorkeling ... at first I thought you were snorkeling with a scooter!

If you are breathing compressed gas, it is a scuba dive IMO. You don't have to have weights or a BCD for it to be a dive.

 

[chrisch]

... I do some relatively shallow diving off of the shore in depths perhaps up to 20 feet using nothing but mask, snorkel, fins and the pony bottle. ...

A regulator might help next time

 

[Normygenius]

During some of my diving centered trips I bring my gear including a 19cf pony bottle and sometimes when not doing an "official scuba dive", I do some relatively shallow diving off of the shore in depths perhaps up to 20 feet using nothing but mask, snorkel, fins and the pony bottle. I also do the same when home, as there are several areas near my home and it's not always worth lugging all the gear. Yes in case you're wondering I'm positively buoyant although the tank helps to some degree, and I might grab a rock if I can find one nearby, here in the Mediterranean it's not tough to find one.

A typical "power snorkeling dive" might be 20 minutes long, and include periods of surface swimming then a drop to depth and breathing off the bottle for a few minutes, then back to the surface, swim to another promising spot and drop down again.

Would this be considered a "loggable dive?". I know there's no logbook police and no I'm not considering some sort of professional career so what I write in there doesn't matter for all practical purposes, just sort of wondering how others might handle this. Do you not log the dive at all, log only the parts when you're breathing compressed air, in which case do you count all the drops to depths as separate dives or do you total them up?

So are you breathing directly from the tank valve?

 

[gamon]

A regulator might help next time

I just breathe directly off the valve.

Edited to add this comment was a joke.

 

[Ukmc]

Personally, I would not log it as a dive. If someone were to audit your log book (like Malpelo Park) for a total required number they would not count it either.
There are people logging pool dives or “memorable” 2-3 min dives - e.g. equipment failure or good learning point and whatever else. However, if you need to log it, I would log all those type of “dives” separately- maybe asterisk book of dives or power snorkeling book of dives. This way it is not misleading for yourself or anyone else.

 

[bradlw]

Personally, I would not log it as a dive. If someone were to audit your log book (like Malpelo Park) for a total required number they would not count it either.

My perspective is limited to the US and limited to recreational technical
nothing commercial.... where I can imagine things like currency would be tracked
I'm also holding a private pilot's license where logging is much more regulatory.

Anyway, so in the diving world, what are the scenarios that a log would be audited?
and within that list, when would anybody ever care about anything other than something such as time since last dive... or deepest dive in the past x number of days?

I mean I can see some dive operator wanting to know that you've dived within say the past year.... or that you have dived deeper than some limit within a certain timeframe.

And I can also understand that for training certification purposes, there will be a requirement for some minimum total number of dives before you can train for some advanced cert.

Otherwise I can't see that it would matter

Especially considering that breathing of a bare valve with no regulator could be considered an emergency training drill! I'm pretty sure that I remember doing it as part of some of my technical training. (Not sure if it was a requirement or just some extra above and beyond thing....)
so log it as a training/practice dive!
but to the OP - why why why would you not put a regulator on your pony?????? that just doesn't compute

 

[gamon]

but to the OP - why why why would you not put a regulator on your pony?????? that just doesn't compute

Sorry my comment was in jest because I thought they were poking fun at me since I didn't specifically say I bring the regulator along with the pony bottle.