Dive Log/Record Keeping

[OkByMe]

Thanks guys. The electronic dive log seems cool. Dive Log 5 looks awesome, but I'm a Mac guy. Any recommendations on a good Mac based dive log app?


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The computer log tracks much more useful information as to profile, consumption rate, water temps through thermocline, time at depth and some models workload and heart rate.

 

[Thanshin]

My main reason to keep logging is to have several references of [weight/suit/temperature] because I rarely dive in non-warm waters and I keep forgetting which suit I want to wear and how much weight I need with it.

 

[Mustard Dave]

Thanks guys. The electronic dive log seems cool. Dive Log 5 looks awesome, but I'm a Mac guy. Any recommendations on a good Mac based dive log app?


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I use Macdive, but not really to its full potential. I only really use it to download the dives and don't do much more than enter the name of the site. It will download the full profile and present it in a chart. It can also tell you things like temperature, deco times, air consumption (if you have an air integrated computer), displays any warnings you got on the dive, gas switches etc. You can then enter other details such as name of your buddy, dive operator and a description of the dive.

You can also synchronise it with your camera - it looks at the time stamp on the photos and any matching your dive time will be imported into the log. You can then export it to PDF, complete with all the above data and photos.

To answer the question about bottom time vs. total dive time , you will get different opinions. Bottom time in my eye is the time of descent and the time on the bottom until you begin your ascent. Different agencies and decompression algorithm creators have different definitions, but bottom time is more important for planning than it is to assess time spent diving. A technical diver may spend an hour in the water, of which only ten minutes is 'bottom time'. The remaining 50 minutes would be deco stops and gas switches. On a shallower profile, a recreational diver could spend an hour underwater with the vast majority being on the bottom. Two very different dives, both with differing bottom times but both involve the same amount of time breathing off a reg. I agree with others that the time underwater is the most relevant.

You log book is your log book and you can use it for whatever you want. I personally don't bother, but I did in the early days as an aide memoir of how much weight I had and air consumption etc. I have never been asked to show it to anybody of any importance. I do not know what your agency requires, but I often hear people saying PADI say a dive has to be longer than 15 minutes or so much breathed from a tank (I forget the number). I think this is a misunderstanding coming from course requirements for duration of training dives and I don't recall ever being told what I can and can't log. There have been five minute aborted dives where I have experienced more than on a one hour uneventful bimble.

Keeping a log of the time underwater is a good thing though. I know an utterly appalling diving instructor who up until qualifying, only ever did fifteen minute dives so he could get up to the magic numbers 60 and 100 dives that PADI require for DM and instructor in as short a time as possible. Time in the water tells me a lot more than the number of dives somebody has done.

 

[azmodan50]

I don't log any dives under 20 minutes. And I only log the dive number and any information that I find might be useful in the future. Your log book is for you, but if you plan to go for higher certifications, the instructor may want to see it. So either you keep track as you go, or you fake it later on if needed.

I prefer to have an accurate count of my dives and it only takes a few minutes to transfer the information from my computer.

 

[doctormike]

Forward compatibility. Paper is forward compatible for the foreseeable future without regular maintenance/updating, electronic data... not so much.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...t-way-log-track-your-dives-2.html#post7148683

I never did understand the pushback that I sometimes get in these forums when advocating for a digital log. There is virtually no area of modern life - recreational, commercial or governmental - where the standard for maintaining important data isn’t already all digital or moving that way quickly.


Now, many people specifically like keeping a paper log, and that’s great. Some enjoy the kinesthetic feel of a pen on paper, the romance of handwritten logs, whatever. Your log is your log, and I don’t mean to imply that you shouldn’t do whatever makes you happy. But as far as a useful way of maintaining data, I just don’t understand the argument that paper is BETTER than digital, and that new divers should CHOOSE to keep a paper log.


Yes, paper does have one advantage over digital in terms of data storage. If our civilization collapses and future archeologists find a paper dive log in a cave somewhere, they may be able to interpret it. But here’s the thing. If that’s important to you, then just print out your digital log, with as little or as much of the info as you like! While you can turn a digital log into paper in a few seconds, turning a paper log into digital (especially a large one) is a big, tedious project. If you are worried about an electromagnetic pulse weapon or a sunspot wiping out all computers, print it out on an optical disk, like a CD. You can even print it on acid-free archival paper, on waterproof paper if you want to take it diving with you, or even etched onto a gold plate if you want to put it on the side of an interstellar probe and brag about your Doria dive to aliens…


And as far as forward compatibility, any modern dive log (like MacDive) can export in XML, comma separated text, even UDCF (universal dive computer format). So if I need to take a few minutes every ten years to forward migrate my data, that’s not such a big problem.


Finally, these threads usually have a post about how a computer died and the user lost his logs. Well, that’s like saying that diving is 100% fatal if you don’t open the tank valve. A certain minimal level of competence is necessary for any technical endeavor. If you care about your information, you back it up. It’s so easy to do that - it can be done automatically, in the background, to multiple offsite locations or the cloud. I also keep it on my phone, so I always have all of the information about all of my dives with me.


Compare that to what happened to one of our local tech instructors. I was all set to train with her when Superstorm Sandy flooded her basement and trashed all of her teaching materials and log books. That information is gone forever.


My 2 PSI

---------- Post added July 14th, 2014 at 09:56 AM ----------

Thanks guys. The electronic dive log seems cool. Dive Log 5 looks awesome, but I'm a Mac guy. Any recommendations on a good Mac based dive log app?


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MacDive, hands down. A terrific program, easily syncs with your iPhone, and the developer (Nick) is terrific - he does frequent updates, and answers tech support questions immediately.

 

[Bogtrotter]

As mentioned it's a helpful record of your diving for future referral, I also note things I notice or reap from other divers, helpful tips and things not to do. As a personal record I find it fun to skim through and reflect on some of the dives and divers I've encountered over the years. If you intend to go for DM etc later on then keeping a log might be be useful, but as an instructor i inquired to regarding this pointed out to me - sure he'd take a look at my logbook but frankly would have no way of telling if it was faked or not. As mentioned by Mustarddave, the number of dives as a measure of experience can be questionable. As a newbie I marvelled at those with 1000's of dives but have since some to learn that this has to be taken with a grain of salt. I recently did a 100fsw dive with a guy who had logged 2000, but he was quite awkward in the water, I wasn't the only one who noticed this. It turns out he did most of his daily diving in a local quarry on inexpensive refills at a firestation. Not that this is not legit or anything, but certainly type of diving, depth, temps and other factors are as important as sheer number in one relatively unchallenging location. Anyway keeping a logbook is useful, especially early in your scuba career- even a paper one.

 

[doctormike]

I don't log any dives under 20 minutes.

Keeping a log of the time underwater is a good thing though. I know an utterly appalling diving instructor who up until qualifying, only ever did fifteen minute dives so he could get up to the magic numbers 60 and 100 dives that PADI require for DM and instructor in as short a time as possible. Time in the water tells me a lot more than the number of dives somebody has done.

That is, of course, reprehensible. But I just want to make one point about an arbitrary time limit.

Since I have an electronic log, I was able to instantly view my dives (total 680) sorted by length in a few seconds. Then I was able to quickly read the notes for the dives under 20 minutes. This is some interesting reading, and definitely worth keeping track of. Here are a few of them, with dive times.

3:16 Was demoing a number of dry suits and tried one that was immediately found to be no good, for reasons detailed in the log

5:23 Three man team at the quarry, one of the divers had an issue on the platform and made an uncontrolled ascent. Detailed this accident.

6:40 Full facemask demo, buddy had issue at depth and made ascent. Detailed the problems that he had

8:00 Dive aborted due to problem with buddy's dry suit

8:06 Ocean dive for new divers, we were escorting some new divers when one had problems on the descent line and aborted dive.

11:30 Attempted rescue dive when one of our divers in the Thousand Islands was diving solo and was overtime. Went in to check the wreck with another diver, when the missing diver returned safely.

 

[Storker]

I never did understand the pushback that I sometimes get in these forums when advocating for a digital log.

Since you're quoting me, I assume you didn't read the post I linked to, where I argued for both the convenience of a digital log and the forward compatibility of a paper log. I never said, neither in this thread nor in the post I linked to, that electronic logs are reprehensible and that your log should be carved in stone with a hammer and a chisel.

Yes, paper does have one advantage over digital in terms of data storage. If our civilization collapses and future archeologists find a paper dive log in a cave somewhere, they may be able to interpret it. But here’s the thing. If that’s important to you, then just print out your digital log, with as little or as much of the info as you like! While you can turn a digital log into paper in a few seconds, turning a paper log into digital (especially a large one) is a big, tedious project. If you are worried about an electromagnetic pulse weapon or a sunspot wiping out all computers, print it out on an optical disk, like a CD. You can even print it on acid-free archival paper, on waterproof paper if you want to take it diving with you, or even etched onto a gold plate if you want to put it on the side of an interstellar probe and brag about your Doria dive to aliens…

My reason for keeping a paper log in addition to a digital one could of course be my paranoia for the future alien zombie invasion apocalypse and concurrent universe collapse. However, my reason is that I've been using computers since the eighties, and I've seen more than once that if I forget a computer file for a number of years, it's more often than not either unreadable by today's software, on a physically unaccessible medium or both.

And again, I don't advocate carving your log on stone tablets with a hammer and a chisel. I just gave a (IMO good) reason for keeping a paper log in parallell. Whether one chooses to write it with a goose quill on pergament or just print out the electronic log on the nearest laser printer is rather irrelevant.

Compare that to what happened to one of our local tech instructors. I was all set to train with her when Superstorm Sandy flooded her basement and trashed all of her teaching materials and log books. That information is gone forever.

You make a very good point for keeping physical and electronic versions in parallell.

And now I think I'm ready for a third helping of hyperbole and strawman arguments...

 

[doctormike]

Since you're quoting me, I assume you didn't read the post I linked to, where I argued for both the convenience of a digital log and the forward compatibility of a paper log. I never said, neither in this thread nor in the post I linked to, that electronic logs are reprehensible and that your log should be carved in stone with a hammer and a chisel

Guilty as charged, my mistake!

But I do stand my my statement about forward compatibility. If you are keeping a digital log, then there is no "forward compatibility" reason to ALSO keep a paper log. I am using the phrase "keep a paper log" to mean "handwriting a paper log", not "printing out a paper version of your digital log".

So handwriting a paper log in addition to a digital log (i.e. keeping a paper log in parallel) seems to be a total waste of time, unless you like doing it for the aforementioned romantic/kinesthetic reasons. In which case, use moleskin...!

However, my reason is that I've been using computers since the eighties, and I've seen more than once that if I forget a computer file for a number of years, it's more often than not either unreadable by today's software, on a physically unaccessible medium or both.

Less of an issue since we don't use physical media much any more (I did recently rig up a 5.25" floppy drive with a controller to recover some data from old disks that I found in the attic), and any important data lives in multiple sites, or with cloud storage, doesn't necessarily exist an any physical location forever.

Also, it's always good to have relatively convertible universal formats, which is where XML, UDCF or CSV come in handy. For example, there are billions of images stored as JPEGs now. Sure, in 100 years JPEGS could be what WordStar files are now, but I doubt it since they are so ubiquitous that future image handling software will almost certainly retain the ability to read JPEGS. Same with plain text formats or markup formats like XML - a bit advance (from an archiving point of view) over proprietary formats like Word, etc...

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Getting back to the OP ... I tally as I go, but my dive log has fields for individual dive bottom time and cumulative total bottom time.

Some years back I gave up paper dive logs. I created a simple tablular form using Word (my dive buddy did something similar, but she prefers Excel) ... and I keep everything on my computer.

My log is mostly data ... hers reads like a novel. It really is up to you what form and function your dive log should take. In the real world, it's rare that anyone will ever ask to see it anyway ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)