Are aquarium maintenance dives logable

[knotical]

for the side issue of PADI’s dive definition:

From the 2007 PADI Instructor Manual:

For training purposes, an open water dive is a dive during which a student diver spends the majority of time at a depth of at least 5 metres/15 feet and:
a. breathes at least 1400 litres or 50 cubic feet of compressed gas.
OR
b. remains submerged for at least 20 minutes.

In the 2012 IM:

During open water dives, have divers spend the majority of time at 5 metres/15 feet or greater, and breathe at least 1400 litres or 50 cubic feet of compressed gas or remain submerged for at least 20 minutes.

A psi criterion would be strange because how much gas that represented would depend on the size of the cylinder.

 

[tursiops]

for the side issue of PADI’s dive definition:

From the 2007 PADI Instructor Manual:In the 2012 IM:A psi criterion would be strange because how much gas that represented would depend on the size of the cylinder.

Strange yes; non-existent, yes.

 

[WetLens]

To the OPs original question: agree with others, it is entirely up to you. Are you keeping a log to record your personal experience or to use it as verification of experience? When I started diving at an aquarium, I logged the day's diving as one dive - just added the time together and wrote in comments the objectives and outcomes of each dive. We did a lot of training for the various positions and I liked keeping track of it. After logging 100+ days, I found it was really skewing my numbers and stopped entering them in my standard dive log. In fact, I ended up pulling them out of my log and created a separate log for the aquarium dives only. That's the beauty of an electronic log. Decision is entirely up to you. I like having the info.

 

[Bob DBF]

It's your log. log what you want. An instructor can sort through them if he wants a dive count with particular requirements. I would log an aquarium dive as that would be something different however I might go to the two log format that WetLens describes if I was diving there a lot.



Bob

 

[Akimbo]

The log is mostly for you since you can make up anything you want and enter it in your log. Perhaps a more useful benchmark is: Did you learn anything?

 

[RJP]

An instructor can sort through them if he wants a dive count with particular requirements.

Sorry to disagree.

Please don't expect an instructor to "sort through" your log book to determine whether your dives meet any particular requirements.

If a student comes to me for a course with a prerequisite of a certain number of logged dives and they tell me that they meet that prerequisite do you honestly expect me - or any instructor - to read through every single "Comments" section of every single dive a student has ever logged in order to determine whether the number provided as "Dive Count" is actually comprised entirely of Open Water dives?

As I mentioned further above, anyone is free to write anything they want in their logbook... and I have many aquarium dives in mine. But I don't assign those dives a "Dive #" and I don't include them in my "Dive Count" number.

 

[Chugwhump]

Dive Log Book?
People still do that?
I do not think I have "logged a dive" since about the last time I dialed "0" for the operator.

Chug
Probably has not seen the logbook since the last time calling 411 "for information"

 

[boulderjohn]

As a couple of people have already pointed out, the rules for dives that have been mentioned are to guide instructors in planning training dives only. They have no bearing on what you decide to put in your log book.

On the other hand, if you are trying to come up with a minimum number of OW dives to qualify for a class like DM, they provide a decent guideline for what you can count for those qualifications, assuming you are an ethical human being.

If you are not an ethical human being, you can do something along the lines of what some people call "teabagging," which is going in and out of the water for short shots that you can call dives. Interestingly enough, I mentioned this to a student who is planning to attend one of those instructor academies after he gets enough qualifying dives. He said he had been in contact with a number of those academies in order to make his plans. He said that most of them suggested that he do exactly what I just described. He was advised to get a tank or two, go to a site, and log 7-8 dives in a day so that he could get his dive count up.

In my mind, if you are open to dishonesty like that, you might as well do real dives in real locations and then just make up some fake dives in fake locations to get your numbers up.

If, on the other hand, you just want to keep track of your dives for your own purposes, log whatever makes sense to you.

 

[Bob DBF]

Sorry to disagree.

Please don't expect an instructor to "sort through" your log book to determine whether your dives meet any particular requirements.

If a student comes to me for a course with a prerequisite of a certain number of logged dives and they tell me that they meet that prerequisite do you honestly expect me - or any instructor - to read through every single "Comments" section of every single dive a student has ever logged in order to determine whether the number provided as "Dive Count" is actually comprised entirely of Open Water dives?

As I mentioned further above, anyone is free to write anything they want in their logbook... and I have many aquarium dives in mine. But I don't assign those dives a "Dive #" and I don't include them in my "Dive Count" number.

With the low dive count for any training in the dive industry, it amazes me there is a requirement for anything. If an instructor is such a Richard as to not believe me when I tell them my OW dive count meets their requirement, they are more than welcome to check, however I would let them finish and go find somewhere else to train.

No, I really don't actually think an instructor would check and I certainly wouldn't lie to him. As a certified diver I've been checked once, for a Nitrox card.



Bob
-------------------------------------
I honestly feel I'm a better diver now. I learned to respect the ocean the hard way. One swallow at a time. Mark Derail

 

[Akimbo]

…On the other hand, if you are trying to come up with a minimum number of OW dives to qualify for a class like DM...

Seriously? People actually need to pad their numbers with only 40 dives required to start the PADI Divemaster course?

Professional Association of Diving Instructors