POLL: How many dives per year do you consider a minimum necessary for skills not to degrade?

[diverintheflesh]

Not sure what to answer here... but it does hit home in a certain way, because my personal circumstances changed this year. Before 2019 I would do on average about 100 dives, about 20 of them teaching dives, 30 training dives and the others or cave or wreck dives of various depths (40-90m).

This year I became the proud father of a beautiful son (born in February)... so when I did my first dive end of March my saldo should have already been 25-30 dives in a normal year... instead of just my first. So far being mid year I've amassed the grand total of 15 dives, and I'm happy about that taking care of a baby together with my girlfriend and also working part time abroad.

So how many dives are enough. Well for recreational diving I could easily take a couple of year hiatus and be able to dive comfortably within 1-2 dives (meaning trim and buyoancy being on level). For deeper diving or cave diving it would think it should be different. However dives 8-11 this year were deepish T2 dives (50-70m range). I was at a local dive base and a GUE T2 instructor invited me to join his class' experience dives. Since there were just 2 students I was to be the 3rd student. I told him that my last deep dive had been almost a year ago and I hadn't practiced my skills a lot, but still I joined on those dives. In the end I felt comfortable (also being a "student" and participating in some of the "issues" they encountered during the dives), even comfortable enough to play around a bit.. at deco depth (stealing the instructors tanks, etc).

Now I'm plugging in my breather again... but for sure I'll be diving it just in recreational range for a long time after a 1 year hiatus... because I'm just not familiar with the machine.

So after this long answer... still don't know what to answer ;-)

Congratulations on becoming a father...!!! That's the greatest specialty course you'll ever take!

That begs an interesting perspective not mentioned yet... I do know parents that have curtailed the more technical dives after children have arrived, even some parents that don't dive together anymore...

This would be an interesting concept to explore more of...

Thank you for your contribution.

 

[Schwob]

“It depends” is going to be the short answer. For the average recreational diver though...I’m going with 24 dives/2 per month to maintain basic/minimum proficiency to ensure safe execution of dives without requiring your buddy to be a crutch for you.

Not opposing your answer, but it certainly is easier to arrive at that conclusion (every month) when hailing from less freezing parts of this world ... or really being into icediving and having like minded buddies and access...

 

[beester]

Congratulations on becoming a father...!!! That's the greatest specialty course you'll ever take!

That begs an interesting perspective not mentioned yet... I do know parents that have curtailed the more technical dives after children have arrived, even some parents that don't dive together anymore...

This would be an interesting concept to explore more of...

Thank you for your contribution.

Heya diverintheflesh... thanks... I'm still working on it

To be honest you touch a point that I've been thinking about and actually me and my partner talked about. She is comfortable with me doing OC tech dives, but less so when it comes to rebreather. On the other hand she is a (now less active) mountaineer and climber so she understands the risk vs reward balance.

When she was pregnant we discussed this, and we knew that our lives would change forever (and oh brother did it change)... but at the same time we also decided that if possible we would try to stay active and do what we love doing, whether that is diving, mountain hiking or maybe climbing.

Our 5 month old son has already been (carried) on quite a lot of hikes, has been to mountain huts (riffugios) in the dolomites (Alps), has been on a dive charter, while dad was diving...

 

[Seaweed Doc]

FWIW, AAUS (regulator of college, university, and aquarium divers) says to maintain active status you have to log 12 dives a year and go no more than 6 months without diving.

 

[jonhall]

some people are at home in the water with just a swim suit, others need to "work" at getting comfortable. IMO those 2 people as divers would learn and retain skills differently.

Most definitely! Think this is a huge factor.

“It depends” is going to be the short answer.

The survey question as it is written does indicate that diving is an ongoing thing each year - "How many dives per year." I originally thought about it also meaning if I came back from an extended period of time off from diving. Still think each individual can respond based on their own abilities and the type of diving they generally do. No need to think of other scenarios or other divers/situations. If I had some type of mental/physical breakdown I'd change my answer from 4.

I think about my wife though and even though she has always been around water (like myself), she would have selected a higher number of dives - not so much because of skills but because of comfort level. Unfortunately she had to give up diving after an ear issue.

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

Not opposing your answer, but it certainly is easier to arrive at that conclusion (every month) when hailing from less freezing parts of this world ... or really being into icediving and having like minded buddies and access...

A diver that has not dived in months is a diver that has not dived in months...regardless of if said diver lives in Canada or Florida.

I’m looking at this strictly from a maintaining proficiency point of view. The average diver is going to experience a decrease in proficiency if they go a significant amount of time between dives. It’s like that with any activity that requires knowledge of equipment, coordination, etc.

 

[Altamira]

I think diving proficiency largely depends on the individual diver, and the complexity of the diving environment. Those that do a lot of reading, and most important, thinking about diving, techniques, and "what ifs" can get by with fewer dives per year than someone that just jumps in the water for a week of diving once a year, but does not give any thought to diving the rest of the year. As an aviator, I have always found that the more arm chair flying I did in my mind and movements, the less my skills degraded after an extended period of not flying.

 

[Chavodel8en]

I dive about every month locally, but I went thru a 4 year stretch (around 2008-2011) where I only dove once a year - I only dove specifically bc I wanted to keep in practice. If i recall correctly, it felt like riding a bike to me. I might have had to readjust my weighting.

Maybe because I was doing the local shore dives that were already very familiar to me, and I was using all the same gear. I felt right at home. If I was doing something novel, like drift diving or boat diving, it may have been more of a challenge.

I have to agree w every one who said "It depends." I voted "4" just because the poll asked for the "miminum", and I personally did OK diving just twice per year (and really only 2 dives on the same day) for a 3-4 year stretch.

Im sure other folks would need more diving to keep in practice - especially if they are newer divers.

But, cmon yall who voted for 48 dives... as the MINIMUM amount of dives per year? Thats diving every other week (assuming 2 dives a day)!!.... I guess that means that a whole bunch of our skills are degrading. Some of us also have jobs, home & family responsibilities, and maybe even other interests.

 

[diverintheflesh]

Heya diverintheflesh... thanks... I'm still working on it

To be honest you touch a point that I've been thinking about and actually me and my partner talked about. She is comfortable with me doing OC tech dives, but less so when it comes to rebreather. On the other hand she is a (now less active) mountaineer and climber so she understands the risk vs reward balance.

When she was pregnant we discussed this, and we knew that our lives would change forever (and oh brother did it change)... but at the same time we also decided that if possible we would try to stay active and do what we love doing, whether that is diving, mountain hiking or maybe climbing.

Our 5 month old son has already been (carried) on quite a lot of hikes, has been to mountain huts (riffugios) in the dolomites (Alps), has been on a dive charter, while dad was diving...

I bet he'll be diving before he'll be driving!!!

 

[EireDiver606]

“It depends” is going to be the short answer. For the average recreational diver though...I’m going with 24 dives/2 per month to maintain basic/minimum proficiency to ensure safe execution of dives without requiring your buddy to be a crutch for you.

I think most divers don’t have any skills and that they don’t need any dives to retain them because they have none. And that number you put out (24) is just that - a number, randomly plucked from your head with no quantifiable data to back it up.