To Log or not to Log, that is the question...

[Florabama]

I started diving back in 1968. Back then, logging dives was not emphasized like it is today. I really regret not logging my dives for many years, and you may come to feel the same way. Had I done so, I would have been able to document the changes in diving since then and more importantly, show them to my son when we started diving together 12 years ago (now, he just gets my "sea stories" and probably doesn't believe most of them).

I would encourage you to get in the habit of logging. You won't be sorry years from now when you look back through your log and relive all the great moments spent underwater.

 

[mossym]

I think a more important question is do you get your logs signed off?

My training dives have an Instructors signature. My dives with my wife have hers. My dives with other buddies are simply my own notes, and no signatures. My wife and my Instructors seem to be the only ones interested in signing my logs.

Does a log entry without a corroborating signature become invalid?

a lot of mine have no signature either...which means you could jsut fake them..but why bother? they only reason to fake them is to make yourself look more experienced..and that seems pretty stupid in the first place...

someone who does that is going to get in trouble one way or another..

 

[Mark Vlahos]

Now that's interesting. Is it just PADI who aren't diligent about checking the prerequisite amount of dives prior to course signups? Or perhaps it just varies from LDS to LDS and I haven't yet been to one that does?

I am not an isntructor, nor have I taken the Solo course, but I do understand that it is a requirement that the instructor verify at least 100 dives BEFORE starting the class. My cave instructor teaches this class and he told me that he has had some very unhappy students when it came to this strict requirement. He told me that some of the students he has had to disappoint were students he had taught before and had personally been diving with on several dives... but disappoint them he did, as the requirement is apparently inviolate.

Mark Vlahos

 

[SmokingMirror]

I think a more important question is do you get your logs signed off?

That's an important point, actually. When talking about non-logging of dives, I'm talking about purely pleasure dives. Whilst my logbook is but a thin slip of a book, it is a thin slip which includes all the dives involved in the OW, AOW, and Rescue courses...

...however, are these even necessary? Arguably, a C-card performs that job just as well (even though, in my admittedly limited diving experience, it too has never been asked for).

 

[Halthron]

I haven't reached this point yet but I don't see the purpose to logging a dive you've already done. I'm currently logging every dive because I learn something new at each one, despite going to generally the same area. But when I start doing the same dive multiple times, I'm not sure I'll log them if I already have a couple of hundred already logged. It's the difference between 20 years of experience and 1 year of experience done 20 times. If you dive a spot in a lake for the first time, it's a new experience. When you've been to that same spot 10 times before and see and do nothing different (still enjoying the experience though), is it log-worthy? I think ultimately, that it becomes a personal decision.

 

[kent_1848]

I log all my dives, but sometimes nothing more than just the facts, and no novels like my wife.

 

[Charlie99]

I think a more important question is do you get your logs signed off?

Never, because my log is a cross between a personal journal about the neat stuff seen on a dive, and a travel guide book with dive boat and hotel phone numbers and mini-reviews. What's in the logs evolves over time, based upon what info I've used from old logbooks, and what info I wished i had written down.

Multiple local shore dives over a couple week period are all lumped together on one page since there's little new info, and I only look at it if for some reason I want to figure out where a particular photo was taken. OTOH, on a dive trip to a new locale I'll write quite a bit about the different dive sites, and at the end of most dive trips I'll use a couple extra pages as a mini trip report.

 

[The Horn]

I Logged my first six dives, 1990-1991 as it was part of the course and then...........now all I have is memories until 2000 and I have a pretty consistant buddy who had a dive computer that did a big chunk of the log. Hmmmmm now I have a dive computer and a program and it is easier, less time consuming and you can be very creative. Adding pictures, copies of charts with locations of wrecks etc.

I think that a log is neat to look back on and it does help trigger memories of a particular dive. It also helps to prove your experience and is a good training aid if you log particular problems/solutions.

Looking back and showing my meager 23 dive log book over the past 15 years is a bit humbling as it shows only the last year or so and my first six dives. My kids are interested as hell in the fact that Daddy dives and I don't have much to show them. Just recently I even started a "Log Book" with sort of a story line and inserted pictures my wife reads them if I'm off at sea and get a chance to dive....kinda cool to see your kids running around with a 2 litre pop bottle scotch tapped to thier backs, an o2 mask from the hsopital and a scuba mask making a deco stop on the couch and swimming around on the grass (my wife loves laundry )

Just keeping a basic record of dives is a good idea

 

[lamont]

i hate diaries and hate paperwork, so i stopped logging dives almost immediately after BOW.

i've been starting to think about adding back an extreme minmalism of log booking -- mostly not to track the dives, though, but to track equipment service.

another thing is that i really don't want to 'relive' my diving experiences. i'd rather just go do more diving...

 

[ozarkjim]

That's an important point, actually. When talking about non-logging of dives, I'm talking about purely pleasure dives. Whilst my logbook is but a thin slip of a book, it is a thin slip which includes all the dives involved in the OW, AOW, and Rescue courses...

...however, are these even necessary? Arguably, a C-card performs that job just as well (even though, in my admittedly limited diving experience, it too has never been asked for).

You don't mention your agency of certification, but PADI requires the instructor to sign your logbook on all training dives.