MichaelMc
Working toward Cenotes
The usefulness of all the numbers is fuzzy. Some of my ocean dives were no different than a pool dive on conditions. Folks I know that dove aquariums counted them separately.
Logging Shallow Dives? ex. Rivers
- Thread starter Barnaby'sDad
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Yes I do, kinda
Firstly I have a seperate paper log book that I record dives in with Students, and get then to sign as my buddy - it gives them a good feeling and is a nice record for me
(I use Mac Dive) My primary digital record, yes I do sort so I note my different dives) Also for teaching I tend to roll some short dives into 1 if they're short/shallow - because I'm more interested in time rather than dive count
On my last trip I was able to say out of a total of X, a were OW classes, B were "proper dives" - I don't count pool work
For a long time I didn't log at all, then began logging the dives however sporadically. Now I log all dives except pool. Because I have no idea of my actual dive count I began numbering by year, however I still occasional miss a few. My numbering turned into for example 20-2019, 21-2019, then 1-2020, 2-2020...
If I end up with a multiple accent where the computers reset because my surface time was greater than three minutes, I combine them into one dive.
I log regardless of depth because there's usually a reason it was shallow or deep, be it cutting line from a prop followed by searching for the anchor or diving a wreck, there's usually a cause.
Despite always diving a computer, I also always do the math for the tables for repetitive dives for letter groups, at least when the math works out for the no deco tables.
If I end up with a multiple accent where the computers reset because my surface time was greater than three minutes, I combine them into one dive.
I log regardless of depth because there's usually a reason it was shallow or deep, be it cutting line from a prop followed by searching for the anchor or diving a wreck, there's usually a cause.
Despite always diving a computer, I also always do the math for the tables for repetitive dives for letter groups, at least when the math works out for the no deco tables.
I keep some statistics in my hand written dive logbook (diving diary actually). An example:
Logbook #25 begins with some statistics (they all do):
- 318 dives totaling 214 hours and 32 minutes [every submersion of relevant length is a dive, depth is irrelevant here, depth can be filtered and graphed in divelog apps automatically]
- overhead environment 131
-- ice dives 46
-- mine dives 60
-- cave dives or sump diving days 25
- zero visibility 36
- local river cleanup dives 17
- search and recovery 22
- other work 2
- sea dives 39
-- sea dives from boat 10
-- sea dives from shore or ice 29
- river dives (all) 20
- pool dives 33
- freedive sessions 12 [both open water and pool are included as breath holding is the key here; only counting serious freediving, not the random ones while swimming]
- solo 36
- wetsuit dives 15
- and so on...
You can see that I had done 318 dives, but only 15 with various wetsuits [and even today I really do not know how much weight I would need with a 5mm wetsuit! I struggle donning plastic fins and my fins are rubber fins with spring straps]. I had only 10 boat dives done. If we were to dive from a RIB you would need to help me climb back up, as I have no experience with diving from a RIB... Someone else may have 1500 dives done, but would struggle diving in really bad visibility.
--> Granular statistics is great. It tells what you actually are familiar with.
Your idea of logging aquarium dives as A1, A2, ... is a very good one.
Some dive logs (such as Diving log 6.0 but probably others too) allow you to assign tags to dives. You can then make a grand list of dive types by various criteria and start clicking! Sea, river, lake, quarry, pond, pool, aquarium, solo, team, night, day, bad viz, single tank, double tanks, incident, felt tired, drysuit, with fins, no fins, no waves, small waves, big waves, current, high current, freezing water.... what ever you want...
Note that an aquarium dive is probably different from a pool dive as you have an actual task to perform and there are fish in the tank that you do not want to harm. Just my guess. I've never been diving in an aquarium.
-------------------
Yes. I actually love metadata and archiving
- Messages
- 7,324
- Reaction score
- 6,347
- # of dives
- 2500 - 4999
I let fly with a sealed dsmb, from about 15 metres, wedged between
the stern and the rudder of a wreck in a reasonable current last week
Shot off at a good angle, I'm glad I had the line to cover the distance
I think I may have felt the solid hub and axle of the reel getting warm
And then off I flew after it!
In the ocean!
the stern and the rudder of a wreck in a reasonable current last week
Shot off at a good angle, I'm glad I had the line to cover the distance
I think I may have felt the solid hub and axle of the reel getting warm
And then off I flew after it!
In the ocean!
After 25 years of diving the only time my dive log was ever looked at by anyone other than me was when I took the NAUI Master Diver course and then again when I did the PADI Divemaster course. Both times were a formality that the instructor had to look to "validate" the number of dives. Both times they looked at my current log book maintained at that point and saw that I had more than the requisite number of dives listed. They did not bother to examine the log book further because I had already proven my practical ability and knowledge via the instructors' observations on dives outside of training scenarios. The instructors I trained with were very selective about who they accepted as students and one needed to be "invited" to train under them after their direct observation or by referral after observation by someone they trusted. The observation was not a one time thing but was a myriad of observations both in and out of the water that took into consideration such factors as planning, attitude towards safety, awareness of others, and personal dive practices.
The reality is that very few really care what is in your log book. The decision to log or not log aquarium dives is completely up to you and what you do is probably more a function of ego and your perception of how others think of you and your log book than anything reality based.
As a divemaster, if you had 100's of dives in an aquarium, I would not think much of that except that you do not have experience in varied environments and water conditions. My thought would be the same about someone with 100's of dives in the same quarry if the conditions of the quarry dives that were logged did not vary from dive to dive. But I will be honest, as a dive professional I am more interested in how you dive as opposed to how many dives you have logged. I know lots of divers with 100's of dives logged meticulously over many log books and yet they are still a s&%t show in the water, can't navigate their way out of a wet paper bag, and have no self-awareness of their competence and comportment in the water.
There was a time when the type of diving I was doing was mostly diving off of boats, and there were times when I was mostly doing surf entries. Now because of where I am living I am mostly walking into a lake or quarry or giant stride entering off a dock and either walking out or climbing out via ladder or stairs. 90% of my dives get logged because I do a lot of diving with inexperienced divers and I log my dives with them to set the example that log book can serve as a good reference tool (think about the relationship between water temp, exposure suit, and weight carried)....but there are handfuls of dives that I don't bother because at some point logging the dive is irrelevant to me, and if I had a problem develop post I expect my computer would be used for analysis and treatment. If I am diving without a computer (which is extremely rare), then the dive profile is drawn as part of the pre-dive dive plan and then re-drawn and compared to the actual profile dived.
Sorry to be so long-winded...the bottom line is if you want to maintain a separate log book for your dives in an aquarium or if you want to maintain them in same log book you maintain for non-aquarium dives, the only one who will really care is you.
Happy diving!
-Z
You mean a log book is used for something besides storing tables. I might have to look into that.
Panther1880
Registered
I log because I want to. It's a process of reviewing my own performance. What went wrong, what went ok and what went great. Why was that and what were the consequences of that? I'm interested in my gas consumption too. I think in every dive there can be learnt something, depth is no factor in how much you can learn. If a certain amount of dives is required be honest to yourself and check how many relevant experience you have.
My mistake, I guess the PADI course has modified focus since first introduced, and I hadn't bothered to update. Back then I was told explicitly "it's not a solo cert. It's to become a safer diver through self-reliance, not a solo diver, which is unsafe." I see the PADI course description now (and maybe for a long time) clearly identifies solo diving as the goal. Thanks for the correction.
...revived the thread because I didn't check the date when I read it? If only CPR worked that way too...
Similar threads
