The Importance of Logging your Dives. The Advantages for new divers (and old)

[Edward3c]

I print out and take the last 6 month of diving when I go on a diving holiday. It does sometimes get looked at.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

I print out and take the last 6 month of diving when I go on a diving holiday. It does sometimes get looked at.

Really??? I'm surprised. I've NEVER been asked for a log book outside of a course with minimum requirements that an instructor needed to verify.

What are they looking at it to verify? The date of your last dive perhaps?

 

[Edward3c]

What are they looking at it to verify? The date of your last dive perhaps?

Yes, to confirm last dive, but also the type of conditions I’m used to. Normally, there is some comment of the mandatory deco, and the lessons for other instructors.

 

[boulderjohn]

Really??? I'm surprised. I've NEVER been asked for a log book outside of a course with minimum requirements that an instructor needed to verify.

What are they looking at it to verify? The date of your last dive perhaps?

In all my diving, they wanted to see my log book exactly once, about 18 years ago on an Australian liveaboard. Most of the divers did not have one. For those who did have a logbook, they looked through them and then matched people up into dive teams of similar experience.

 

[Esprise Me]

I showed my logbook recently for my solo course to prove I had the requisite 100+ dives. But it was also handy for deciding what size pony to get. Some of the fellas at the dive shop were urging me to go for the 30 or 40 cf; I was hoping to get away with something smaller. Because I'd recorded the pertinent data for almost every dive I've ever done, I was able to determine my real-world SAC rate/dive factor under various stressful conditions, and decide that the much lighter and shorter 19 cf was plenty for me, thanks.

I haven't had a dive operator or anyone else ask to see it. But I'd be no less motivated to keep it if I could peer into a crystal ball and know for sure that I'd never have to show it again. I just like having it for myself.

 

[TMHeimer]

Really??? I'm surprised. I've NEVER been asked for a log book outside of a course with minimum requirements that an instructor needed to verify.

What are they looking at it to verify? The date of your last dive perhaps?

Same. In fact I've never had it looked at for courses that required a number of dives. Two that I recall were Rescue Diver (at the time required 20 dives, no longer) and ever Divemaster. Of course they knew me at the shop, but still.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I’ve never had them ask to see my log book to take courses. This could also be because I knew everyone at the shop and took all my stuff through the same people.

 

[DBPacific]

I'm surprised that nowadays paper log leads the vote. It is not what I assumed in talking with people and reading.

Maybe it's part of the SB crowd. I use (waterproof) paper because my memory is horrible and computers + boats are a bad mix

 

[drbill]

Sadly I didn't log my dives from 1962 to June, 2000. I didn't start logging until that summer because I planned on traveling internationally and needed a record to prove I was experienced. I now log every dive on my website (and post my c-cards there) so they are accessible from anywhere on the planet that has Internet in case there are questions. I got pretty tired of PADI instructors who had no clue what my L.A. Count c-card meant and required me to do check-out dives before diving with their shop. Finally I met an instructor in Cairns who not only recognized my c-card, but called it a "museum piece" and gave me a PADI AOW card for the cost of materials (plus doing the skills).

 

[boulderjohn]

Sadly I didn't log my dives from 1962 to June, 2000. I didn't start logging until that summer because I planned on traveling internationally and needed a record to prove I was experienced. I now log every dive on my website (and post my c-cards there) so they are accessible from anywhere on the planet that has Internet in case there are questions. I got pretty tired of PADI instructors who had no clue what my L.A. Count c-card meant and required me to do check-out dives before diving with their shop. Finally I met an instructor in Cairns who not only recognized my c-card, but called it a "museum piece" and gave me a PADI AOW card for the cost of materials (plus doing the skills).

Your story reminds me of a story I told on ScubaBoard several times, a story I heard from a speaker at a diving conference. Here is his story.

It was 1967 (IIRC), and the speaker had just started a planned intense dive experience (multiple days, multiple dives) on a boat in Australia. The captain asked to see everyone's c-card, and he did not have one. He did not log dives, either. He told the captain that his father had taught him to dive, starting when he was 7 years old, and he had completed thousands of dives since then. The captain was not moved--no c-card, no dives. Finally, some members of the crew prevailed upon the captain, and he relented.

As soon as the speaker was back in the USA, he went to a local PADI shop and got certified so that he would not have to go through that again. He opened his wallet and produced that card, which he has carried ever since.

His name was Jean-Michel Cousteau, who at age 7 was the second human (after his father) to use the new Gagnon-Cousteau scuba system.