Importance of Log Book?

[drbill]

I have no logbook for my dives from 1962 to 2000. I started logging in June of 2000 when I decided I wanted to do some international dive travel and that operators in my destinations would probably want to see my logged dives.

 

[scubadada]

The importance of a log book is in the eye of the beholder. I have logged all 897 dives since August of 1997. I did not log my dives from 1970-1980, I wish I did. To each their own.

 

[Subcooled]

What are the benefits to logging dives? What is this information used for? Do the logs have to be signed/stamped by a dive shop to be considered legitimate? Any help with these questions would be great! Thanks!

Some diving courses (mostly technical diving: decompression diving, helium diving, cave diving, ...) have a certain amount of dives as a requirement.

If you want to become a dive guide (aka divemaster) then you need to have done a certain amount of verifiable dives.

If you have two pages of hand written record per dive, then no-one who is mentally sane is going to question the log. If the log is just a list of dates, then you would really need signatures.

The real benefit of keeping a diary (a divelog) is that you will review what you have done. That is a method of learning and it can be quite enjoyable. And finally: memories for life. Photographs are nice, but they do not tell it all. You really need some prose.

 

[drbill]

I dove for more than 35 years without logging my dives but started in June of 2000 when I realized I'd be traveling internationally and a log may be necessary to verify I've actually done a certain number of dives and recently (since my c-card is from the 1960s). Once in the habit I kept it going and nowe have about 3,000 logged dives over that time period. Hopefully that will be enough to satisfy any dive operator I travel to dive with.

 

[TMHeimer]

I dove for more than 35 years without logging my dives but started in June of 2000 when I realized I'd be traveling internationally and a log may be necessary to verify I've actually done a certain number of dives and recently (since my c-card is from the 1960s). Once in the habit I kept it going and nowe have about 3,000 logged dives over that time period. Hopefully that will be enough to satisfy any dive operator I travel to dive with.

What would you estimate as your total dives?