Logging Shallow Dives? ex. Rivers

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Barnaby'sDad

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Location
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# of dives
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For the purpose of counting towards the 100 dive requirement for solo certification courses...do shallow open water dives (ex. Rivers) count towards that total? By shallow...I'm talking ~10'. There's a decent current and the visibility tends to suck, so there is some value in diving there...from the exposure to different diving conditions standpoint.

How does an instructor and/or certification agency look at it? Do they see a diver that completes 40+ minute solo dives in a river at ~10' and count each of them as an open water dive...or do they toss them out if they don't meet a certain depth requirement? ex. 15'+ for 15+ minutes. Thank you.
 
It would be up to the instructor, and it may depend on the other dives you make. If I were an instructor, I wouldn't take the same dive 100 times as enough diving experience for solo, but as you say, there is a value in interesting dives.


Bob
 
Caveat: I am not an instructor.

My guess is it varies from teacher to teacher, region to region.

The more important question is whether you have sufficient experience for the type of dives you plan to do solo. So I would consider your experience to count towards shallow solo dives in familiar rivers.

Be up front with your instructor about the kinds of dives you've been doing and want to be doing in the future. The worst case scenario is they say you need more dives. It means they're safety focused, and you have another excuse to go diving. :)
 
Thank you Bob. I've been trying to do a little bit of everything. That's one reason I'm trying to take it easy with the quarry dives for the next month or two. I'd rather not bang out 100+ dives in a hurry and hand over a log book that looks like someone just copied and pasted the same profile from one page to the next.

Caveat: I am not an instructor.

My guess is it varies from teacher to teacher, region to region.

The more important question is whether you have sufficient experience for the type of dives you plan to do solo. So I would consider your experience to count towards shallow solo dives in familiar rivers.

Be up front with your instructor about the kinds of dives you've been doing and want to be doing in the future. The worst case scenario is they say you need more dives. It means they're safety focused, and you have another excuse to go diving. :)

Cool. I'll keep that in mind. That's kind of what I was hoping for.

I used the shallow river in question as a sort of dive on "training wheels" to prepare for current and low visibility dives, as I was thinking about diving the Cooper River. As I ended up not minding ~2' of visibility and current in the local river...after I got additional dives under my belt...I opted to dive the Cooper River. I got to do three solo dives on that one, which was pretty cool (no light below about 15' and a ripping current). If it wasn't seven hours away, I'd be down there on a regular basis.

This gives me something to work towards. Thank you.:cheers:
 
That's one reason I'm trying to take it easy with the quarry dives for the next month or two. I'd rather not bang out 100+ dives in a hurry and hand over a log book that looks like someone just copied and pasted the same profile from one page to the next.

Mate it's good you have a respect, a healthy apprehensiveness but what course do you think you are doing
astronaut training, next cia intake or somewhere in between like scuba diving

go diving or sit in a chair or go diving
 
Thank you Bob. I've been trying to do a little bit of everything. That's one reason I'm trying to take it easy with the quarry dives for the next month or two. I'd rather not bang out 100+ dives in a hurry and hand over a log book that looks like someone just copied and pasted the same profile from one page to the next.



Cool. I'll keep that in mind. That's kind of what I was hoping for.

I used the shallow river in question as a sort of dive on "training wheels" to prepare for current and low visibility dives, as I was thinking about diving the Cooper River. As I ended up not minding ~2' of visibility and current in the local river...after I got additional dives under my belt...I opted to dive the Cooper River. I got to do three solo dives on that one, which was pretty cool (no light below about 15' and a ripping current). If it wasn't seven hours away, I'd be down there on a regular basis.

This gives me something to work towards. Thank you.:cheers:

Good attitude. I'd far prefer to see someone with 50 dives in a variety of environments than 100 20 minute dips in the same puddle.
 
It is a hyperbaric exposure..
Underwater can be a few inches or a zillione feet

It is all hyperbaric pressure which does not differentiate, between the fresh water of a river a mud hole a quarry or the salt water from one of the world oceans …
It all counts

SDM
 
We routinely drift dive a 3kt current. Depths run from 10' to 30' where we typically go. They are unique in many aspects, and all are dives worthy of claiming as experience.

Even if you are just splashing in the quarry over and over, are you attempting different things? Navigation, search/recovery, buoyancy drills, refining kick types, etc. are all skills you can sharpen every time you are in the water....

Even attempt to task load to see if you can keep your calm.

Dive count is by no means a accurate measure. Skill development is the benchmark.
 
Mate it's good you have a respect, a healthy apprehensiveness but what course do you think you are doing
astronaut training, next cia intake or somewhere in between like scuba diving

go diving or sit in a chair or go diving

The way many people in the industry regard solo diving and those that partake in it (in my country...at least) ...you’d think that we’re talking about astronaut training.:popcorn:

I’m not apprehensive about the course. I just wanted to get an idea of whether or not some of the dives that I’ve completed are going to count towards my total when the time comes.

We routinely drift dive a 3kt current. Depths run from 10' to 30' where we typically go. They are unique in many aspects, and all are dives worthy of claiming as experience.

Even if you are just splashing in the quarry over and over, are you attempting different things? Navigation, search/recovery, buoyancy drills, refining kick types, etc. are all skills you can sharpen every time you are in the water....

Even attempt to task load to see if you can keep your calm.

Dive count is by no means a accurate measure. Skill development is the benchmark.

Yes. I try to vary the dive profiles depending on what my buddy is game to do. We’ll trade off who leads the dive and work on navigation, different kicks, buoyancy, SMB deployment, breathing rate, etc. I still tend to be excited and go through my first tank of the day quickly, that’s the biggest thing that I try to work on. It is getting better though.

I make sure that even if I’m going to do quarry dives...there’s something different about each dive to keep things interesting. Ex. One dive we’ll go to the deep/colder section (60’ or so) and explore there, another dive we’ll go to the shallow/warmer section (30’ or so) and work there. My goal is no less than 40 minutes per dive.

I want to get something out of every dive. If you aren’t progressing...sooner or later...you’re going to start regressing, skills wise.

On task loading...deploying my SMB while staked into the ground with one hand (Cooper River) and attempting to launch it into the current and not get tangled up in the line was fun.
 
We routinely drift dive a 3kt current. Depths run from 10' to 30' where we typically go. They are unique in many aspects, and all are dives worthy of claiming as experience.

Even if you are just splashing in the quarry over and over, are you attempting different things? Navigation, search/recovery, buoyancy drills, refining kick types, etc. are all skills you can sharpen every time you are in the water....

Even attempt to task load to see if you can keep your calm.

Dive count is by no means a accurate measure. Skill development is the benchmark.

I agree...
 

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