Number of dives or Total dive time

[BOATS313]

There is no single factor that I would use to judge a diver. Until you dive with them you just don't know. Number of dives can be just as off as dive time. How much time adds up on a 20-30 foot reef? And how much do you learn on that dive? Then again your time on a 80-100 foot dive would be much less but you may learn more. You also have to consider the time span between dives and since first starting. IMO you just need to get to know people and dive with them.

 

[Karl_in_Calif]

Wendy once bubbled...
Just because someone has 100's of dives does not mean they are a good diver.

It cuts both ways. A diver may possibly become overconfident as well with many dives.

Mia Tegner of Scripps had 5000 dives to her credit. Then one day, when she was counting shells (or something, forgot exactly what it was) underwater, she overstayed her turn-around time, motioned to her buddy (who was her husband) to return to the surface without her, and kept counting, while she went into deco, although she was not configured to do so.

By the time she got back to the dive boat, she had omitted decompression, so she grabbed a B/C with a partially full tank on it, and headed back down to compete the deco. She never came back.

MHK did a great post-dive failure analysis of everything that went wrong that day. His list had about a dozen things on it. Any one of them could have saved Mia's life.

It was all a really heart-rending story that tells us that too much experience can also become dangerous, if you begin to treat the gas laws lightly.

 

[Lead_carrier]

FLArmyBrat once bubbled...
At this point, almost 700 mins logged sounds better than 17 dives logged!!! LOL

Laurel- The Frog Queen
:royal:

Impress the heck out of them..
tell them you have 42000 time units underwater.