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Also need a better word for a 'Regular' dive as used here...

TYPE: Drift Reg Night Day Boat Shore

Any suggestions ?

I might just leave it out.
 
Last edited:
Also need a better word for a 'Regular' dive as used here...

TYPE: Drift Reg Night Day Boat Shore

Any suggestions ?

I might just leave it out.

Make it a blank and put in whatever descriptor of the dive you want.
 
I strongly prefer electronic logs, for reasons that have been hashed to death here in many threads, so I won’t bore you with that discussion!

Here are my notes on your form. The first one is the most important, after that I’ll just list them in order:

Your mix is your mix. There should never be any significant difference between those three numbers. If the shop analyzer and your personal analyzer are 1% off, don’t worry about it. Set your computer to the lower EAN but dive the MOD of the higher EAN.

If you get very different numbers with the shop analyzer and your analyzer, you had better figure out what the problem is and not just log it. Similarly, I don’t know what you mean by “used” - are you setting your computer to something different than what you analyze your gas to be? I know that some people do that, but I don’t think that it’s a good idea for reasons beyond the scope of this discussion.

City/State is not a great field label for dive locations, as it’s not always applicable. MacDive has country, location, and site name. So it would be something like “Mexico”, “Cozumel”, “Santa Rosa Wall”.

Lat, long and alt? Not really worth wasting real estate on such a small page unless you routinely find these and write them in. This would be more helpful in an electronic log where that data could be generated by a GPS or link to an online map. Assuming that you are diving known dive sites, you could always google that if you needed it for some reason in the future.

I think that “AVG” would be short for average, not “AVE”

I know that "Reg" means regular, but I don't understand what a "regular" dive is.

I would use the term “surface interval” rather than “Surface Time (Prior)”.

I’m not sure why you need to have a field for “safety stop time”. It’s probably always going to be 3 minutes, right? If something odd happens (say you need to blow off a safety stop for some reason), explain in the comment section.

Are you using lots of different camera packages? Seems like an odd level of detail to take up two lines on a written page. Again, a benefit of an electronic log, makes it easy to manage unlimited gear configurations.

Total dive time and total bottom time? I guess if you like looking at that number, it’s fine to keep a running tally, but I wouldn’t bother. Don’t know what it really means. In terms of experience, you might get a lot more out of a 30 minute wreck penetration than out of a 90 minute drift over a sandy reef.
 
I keep about 100 dives in my log book at any given time, but for traveling, you could probably just pull out the relevant pages.
 

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Also need a better word for a 'Regular' dive as used here...

TYPE: Drift Reg Night Day Boat Shore

Any suggestions ?

I might just leave it out.

I would leave out 'Day' because unless its a night dive, its going to be a day dive. Then you will have space for 'Regular', if you wish. Although I'm not sure what 'Regular' is if its not covered by boat/shore :wink:
 
Thank you for taking time to review this.

What electronic S/W are you using ? MacDive?

Yup! MacDive is AWESOME, and the developer is incredibly responsive with updates, bug fixes and trouble shooting.

Didn't want to hijack the thread, I know that you asked specifically about your form, but happy to chat about that as well.
 
I would leave out 'Day' because unless its a night dive, its going to be a day dive. Then you will have space for 'Regular', if you wish. Although I'm not sure what 'Regular' is if its not covered by boat/shore :wink:
At one time I was looking for a word to describe a nonDrift dive....all I could think of was Regular.
I decided to delete it...it did not add any real value.
 
If you swim without the benefit of current from the entry at point A to the exit at point B, it's also not really a "drift" dive. Granted, such non-drift A-B dives are uncommon, since you generally have to somehow get back to where you started, but I have done a few. I might suggest two options: "A-to-A" and "A-to-B." If you're drifting with the current or swimming without the benefit of current, you can include that in the Notes/Comments section. Sometimes, what was supposed to be a drift dive ends up, due to a miscalculation, with you swimming against a current for much of the dive. I like to note things like that. "DM screwed up and had us swimming into current for half of what was supposed to be an easy drift dive."

What we choose to include as checkboxes versus writing out in a blank space is a personal thing. I like to write, so the logbook pages I created for myself have a number of large, blank spaces. For example, instead of things like Pressure Group, Computer, Safety Stop, etc., I have a large, blank space labeled "Deco." I usually write in something like "direct ascent to surface, 30 fpm, w/ 3-min. SS" meaning this was a typical no-stop recreational dive. But the flexibility is there for describing in any way I wish how addressed the issue of offgassing on the ascent, i.e., decompression. There is an obvious tradeoff between the flexibility of being able to write anything in, and the convenience of simply checking a box or circling an option. I prefer the former, but I have to admit it can get tedious on a week-long dive trip with multiple pages per day to fill in.

As for Day versus Night, I use the time of day at entry to cover that, since except for extreme northern and southern latitudes it correlates reasonably well to whether there is daylight or darkness. If Day and Night are the only options, what would a twilight dive be considered? So, I don't have a specific checkbox/option for Night. I do have a box labeled "Topside," where I can write in anything having to do with what's above the water, such as a boat, weather, any idiosyncracies of the entry/exit procedure, etc., but I suppose it being "dark" topside would tell me it's a night dive. Again, all a matter of how much you feel like writing as opposed to checking/circling options.
 
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