Multi Level Dive Logging?

[Steve_C]

I Yet never actually grasp the real-world, useful significance of the steps, the PGs, the RNT values, etc..

Useful significance? If you watch your computer during a couple of boat dives you quickly get the fact that
-deeper you are the less NDL
-shallower you are the more NDL
-On dive 2 you will start with less NDL.
-The longer dive 1 and the shorter the SI, the less NDL on dive 2.
-on the hang bar your NDL is essentially infinite.
-safety stops are a good idea.

The tables are just a not very accurate conservative heuristic to talk about those things.

I can use tables and have them with me. I do not find them that useful for the kind of diving I do. Note that I do diving from a fixed location be it boat or shore. I do not do diving where we have to get some where and have enough gas to get back. Thirds are always an option for me.

 

[TMHeimer]

The OP didn’t get a download cable with his computer since it was too expensive.

All the table stuff is amusing to me. I’m surprised they’re seemingly still taught with the thought people will actually use them.

Good point. From what I read there aren't very many places teaching tables anymore anyway.
Stuart makes an interesting point too, that people who haven't used tables in years could screw up using them. I wonder what would prompt them to use them anyway (other than a flooded computer)?
Think I would agree there are probably better ways to "ingrane" if you will, the theory rather than with tables.
Most of dives are shallow (30', less) shore dives, when I don't bother with the computer (I'm not gunna be down 2 1/2 hours, and don't have to worry about flooding or properly rinsing the thing). I only use tables so I have something to put in the log book--not because I really have to.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

All the table stuff is amusing to me. I’m surprised they’re seemingly still taught with the thought people will actually use them.

If my computer died, I could still make a few dives using tables. I use my computer to give me more bottom time, but I don't rely on it completely.

 

[PfcAJ]

I actually prefer not to teach tables at all. As with any other scuba skill, it gets stale when not used. And I have seen too many instances of people trying to use tables, after probably years of diving and not using tables at all, where they were using them wrong (e.g. basing table lookups on average depth instead of max depth, just as one example). My concern is people using them wrong and hurting themselves, and it being a result of being taught something they never use but then thinking that they still "have that skill".

“Using them wrong”.

How many times do we have to go over this?

You’re so locked in to what your open water manual says that you can’t engage yer noodle and realize that what it says is not grounded in reality.

Newsflash - something being written in a manual does not mean it’s correct.

 

[PfcAJ]

Man, there’s just sOoOo many cases of folks using avg depth and getting bent. I can’t even keep up! /s

 

[jgttrey]

I wish that more folks taught tables, actually. Or, more accurately, used them as a teaching tool.

Not because of any real expectation that OW divers would use them as opposed to computers, but because learning to work problems with tables (taught correctly) drives home the concepts.

For most OW divers I see, their computers are just black boxes and they have little or no idea what the computer is doing - they just follow it, with no concept of RNT, feel for how depth changes will change their NDLs, conservatism, impact of longer surface intervals, etc., etc.

How many times have you seen posts from divers asking which computer will "give" them more NDL, as if having the "right" computer would make it "safer" to stay longer? For that matter, how many times do you see newer OW divers use their computer to "plan" a dive at all, or how many could tell you offhand how much time they could spend at 100 feet vs 60, or really even know how they would figure that out in advance of a dive.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for computers, but as a teaching tool, learning tables (even if you never use them again) is better way to get a "feel" for what is really going on and makes you a smarter diver.

 

[Todd Whitworth]

I like the tables, and I plan to keep my knowledge of how to use them fresh. I do like my computer, I'm still learning how to use it, and how to understand the data it provides. In general, my dives are around the 30'-50' range and it's one dive on a single tank. (I only own one tank), and I live in BC, it's cold water diving here and I dive wet.
The only time I've done multiple dives in a day with SI's etc is in my OW and my AOW courses. That said I am heading to warmer waters next fall, so really getting my safety skills dialed in is a high priority to me.
I want to teach someday, and I wouldn't be a very good example if I had bad habits myself.

Todd

 

[stuartv]

“Using them wrong”.

How many times do we have to go over this?

You’re so locked in to what your open water manual says that you can’t engage yer noodle and realize that what it says is not grounded in reality.

Newsflash - something being written in a manual does not mean it’s correct.

The best interpretation I can get from your post is that you are saying that using tables (e.g. PADI tables, as taught in a PADI OW class) is not grounded in reality and it's not correct.

Is that what you meant?

Also, you seem to be implying that tables cannot be used wrongly. Or maybe you're trying to say that all use of tables is wrong. I'm not sure.

 

[tursiops]

Man, there’s just sOoOo many cases of folks using avg depth and getting bent. I can’t even keep up! /s

Maybe that's because very few people are bold/silly enough to use average depth.

 

[rhwestfall]

I have been certified for over thirty years....

I honestly believe tables in the recreational world have gone the way of the dinosaur.... (I'll still adapt them in some ways, but rarely).

The tech realm can still use them successfully as there are still square profiles as diving in the tech realm there isn't tech dives doing 3-4-5-6 (pick a number) dives a day.....

Yes, I still will use various methods to do some rough plans or sanity checks, but the PDC has become so reasonable for cost in the recreational realm, it is just simply replacing tables.....

We need to adjust instruction to properly address teaching what is happening (as we understand it) in the recreational realm, and how to properly implement the PDC.

YMMV