"PC Dive log" Form

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DoubleDip

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Location
Seattle, Washington
This is a standard dive form that I fill out for each dive. Please check the form and give me any feed back, changes ect. Redondo Beach is a local dive and thus its placement into this forum. I am trying to catch up on my log and have it current to the second week in March (Procrastinator) I wonder if you all keep record's like this and If you have your own form.
I have vivid memorys of this dive, and every other dive I have participated in. The narrative has been slightly modified to make it more readable. Just for the record this dive wasnt my normal Underwater experience.

Redondo Beach 3-14-05'

Location: Redondo Beach

Directions: Redondo, just south of Des Moines

Dive partner: Solo

Dive plan: Swim down slowly to submerged structure off Pier and look around.

Maximum depth: 60"
Total bottom time: 1 Hr.
Repetitive group: N/a
Surface interval: N/a
Next repetitive dive group: N/a
Safety stop at 10': Yes, always

Actual dive: Move down to submerged structure look around and get some "Pic's", Six gill Shark?

Maximum depth: 55'
Total bottom time: 50 Minutes
Repetitive group: N/a
Surface interval: N/a
Next repetitive dive group: N/a
Safety stop at 10': Yes, for ten minutes.

Statistics:
Decend at: 7:20PM
Accend at: 8:10PM
Cylinder: 100Cu'
Starting PSI 3000PSI
Ending PSI 1000PSI
Equipment: Camera and strobe.

Visibility: Its Night, Duh, 6' or the reach of your light.

Weather: Night, calm surface, no breeze.

land:
Air temperature: 52F
sky condition: Star clear Night

Sea:
Water temperature: 45F
surface condition: calm
current: none, High Tide

Narrative: Stop North of Salty’s Restaurant Pier; I unload my gear, Becky and Nick came along and did homework in the truck after watching me submerge. I Suit up, check the gear and my gauges. Camera; check, I'm ready. I throw myself over the curb and walk into the water, in I go. High Tide, I follow the bottom down, small round rocks cover the bottom, there’s a few small Shiner Perch for your light to flicker off of on the way down. Sliding down with the sloping contour of the bottom, I came across "Mr.Wiskers" a Sturgeon Poacher, I got some good pictures of him and continued down into the darkness. But from Mr.Wiskers on down, the battle with the camera and the strobe was on... right to the point were the camera's battery went dead, but I am getting ahead of myself...read on, please.
Dropping down past 40'I noticed a shape appearing from the darkness, it was a steel cage like the kids play toy at your local MacDonald’s, the only redeemable thing about it was it provided a spot for Plumose Anemones to light onto, and it contains an assortment of Tube Worms. I navigated around this structure in a clockwise motion. The lowest point of which was in 55' of water. Glancing down the grade towards the bottom trench of the Sound, my mind drifted...were it bumped right into the imaginary shape of a Six Gill Shark, not a giant shark, sure there are some in these waters, this was just an average size Six Gill, a six footer, but the thought was enough to provide a brief twinge of anxiety. Brushing off my imagination, I returned to the present. I rose up towards the top of the structure and came upon a Sharp Nose Crab. A Sharp Nose Crab in the night, Darkness, are brightly colored, there underside has bright red streaks between the hard, dark colored outer shell. Hey, they look cool at night; Anyway, I decided to take some pictures and even a small movie file. Taking a movie file at night with a small flashlight doesn’t work very well but remember, I'm an Artist and I think it’s cool. Moving back toward the shallowest part of this submerged whatever I noticed a nice little pink Plumose Anemone surrounded with Tube Worms, some brown Worms and some brown with white ruffles around the edges. I think I'll take some pictures. Wait; a thought enters my mind, a small tinge of anxiety couples with it. A quick flash of my light in a circle is enough to quell it this time. Then, Again the vision enters my head; one of lying prone, carefully adjusting what will from now on be called "The Devil's strobe"(it dosent fire all the time) while also composing the picture that will win the rave reviews of my friends at Scubaboad.com. The thought fills my mind, which isn’t the worst thought to have, its actually kind of cool, its just when you add to this vision getting bumped in the legs or anywhere else on your body by a Six Gill Shark while underwater, it can kinda creep you out a little. Bumped by a Six Gill Shark while obsessing with your camera, Hmm, that gets the pangs going. I better flick the light around again, nuthin but sand, but wait, what the heck is that! A Ham Bone? Some fool from the restaurant above is throwing food off the end of the pier at night, feeding the fish? Now I am a little distracted. I have read posts on Six gill sightings here, and that coupled with the Ham bone over there equal’s a Shark for sure, well I'm ready. I'll just take his picture too, if he swims by... But for now back to my little Anemone. I snap some pictures, moving slowly around the little Tube worms that are popping in and out of the tubes when feeling the slightest change of water movement, There that’s a good picture, take that devils strobe; you fired that time didn’t you. Suddenly there it was, I wasn’t expecting this, and it was the small gnawing but constant little red flash of the low battery indicator in my camera display. Click, the shutter fired one more time, then darkness filled the display screen. Shoot, there goes the dive. Working my way up towards the shallows, I stop and off gas in 15 feet of water, the lights from the Restaurants above are casting a steady glow onto the surface above me. This is like diving in a swimming pool, now. Watching a little Red Rock crab watch me my mind back peddles to less than 40' behind me, seems kind of silly now, and so far removed. After surfacing, I dry off. I tell myself, I'm going over to that restaurant and ask if anyone is throwing Ham hocks off into the water...I never did, but there is one thing I am absolutly certain about tonight.
Man, I love diving!

P.S. Nick never did do his homework.
 
DoubleDip:
I wonder if you all keep record's like this and If you have your own form.
Wow! I don't keep anything like that detail in my log. I just download my Mosquito or D3 to the Suunto Dive Manager, fill in the location, buddy and air consumption fields then call it good. I don't keep notes unless I see something extraordinary (i.e. SIX GILL!), and even then it's only a couple of lines.

I used to log everything manually until I got the download cable for my computer. Now it's all electronic. :)

Jimmie
 
Do you write everything down immediately after the dive?

Like Jimmie, I download my dive info (depth, pressure, temperature, and rates of ascent and descent) using the Aeris software from my Aeris Elite dive computer to my desktop and add location and buddy information. If the dive is especially memorable, I will add a brief description.

I've seen people who keep a scrapbook to sketch the flora and fauna after each dive as a supplement to their dive log. In some ways, I wish I had the commitment because it would be nice to look back at the notes years later.
 
Yea, I'm just like Kalvyn and Minkey. I download my dive, fill in buddy and site info on the computer, and then copy over the dive stats to my paper log, but don't really write down any other particulars about the dive.

On a side note I remember hearing (I think on NPR) that in certian respects it might be harder to piece together personal histories in the future. Just 20 years ago, everything was written down and stored away (relatively) safely. Now everthing is email, IM, chat this and that. 100 years from now there is a good chance that none of my emails and converations will any longer exist, where as in the past there would be a much greater chance of recovering that type of stuff.

I know I have some (paper) letters saved away from when I was in Junior HS / HS, but I don't have any email correspondance from further back than maybe a couple years. Plus I think when you write stuff out on paper it tends to be more personable than when written on a computer. Hmm, I wonder how long these words will live on....
 
I download my Suunto Cobra, add a few notes, fill in the user input fields like location, weight, buddy, etc. and call it good. Congratulations if you can maintain the level of detail you have above. Hope it is useful someday.
 
Wow, great detail Double Dip! I wish I had your commitment, and I enjoyed reading your narrative.

In addition to the usual stats, I also make note of any equipement that I had issues with, anything on my set up that I might want to change, or anything I may have forgot. :book2:
 
Wow. You are dedicated. I may mention a few critters I saw (along with the computer info), but that's it.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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