What constitutes a dive?

[TMHeimer]

Again, if you need dives to take a course that's one thing. Be honest. For one's own records, I don't see any difference if a SI is 10 minutes or 30. For your own good, just make sure your "required" dives are legit and that you have enough of them. I don't know if agencies consider SI times anyway. As pointed out, if you're fudging on anything (depth, time, etc.) to qualify for a course, you may as well fake the whole thing.

 

[Skittl1321]

This should be explained clearly in your OW class.

I honestly don't remember this being part of my OW class. I'll have to go through the book and see if I just missed it.


We recently did two 25 minute dives that I ended up logging as 9a and 9b in my dive log. It seemed disingenuous to call them two separate dives; I mean, we basically came up from the first one because it was so damn boring (didn't see ANYTHING in 20 minutes), and found a new spot in the lake; but the dives were separated by only about 2 minutes, we didn't get out of the water. But I wanted to write about them separately because the character of the dives was a bit different: different depth, different temperature, different visibility, etc. Logging it as two dives would make it look like I was just trying to boost my numbers

At the same time, it seemed wrong to log them as a single dive because I didn't do a 40 minute dive. If someone wanted to go through my log to see how long I'd been underwater all at once, it would be misleading to have it logged as a single dive. So that seemed just as inappropriate as logging two dives.

 

[Steve_C]

Don't think that swapping tanks is relevant. I know several folks who dive doubles. They never swap tanks during the day and dive the same profile that I did for two dives offshore. Also more than once at the local quarry I have done a dive (more than 40 minutes, more than 30 ft) and then while on shore somebody wanted to do a dive. After an hour or so I did another 30 plus minutes, 30 plus ft dive on the same tank. (HP 100).

 

[TMHeimer]

Don't think that swapping tanks is relevant. I know several folks who dive doubles. They never swap tanks during the day and dive the same profile that I did for two dives offshore. Also more than once at the local quarry I have done a dive (more than 40 minutes, more than 30 ft) and then while on shore somebody wanted to do a dive. After an hour or so I did another 30 plus minutes, 30 plus ft dive on the same tank. (HP 100).

Agree. I do the same thing frequently.

 

[spectrum]

I agree with that scenario or even 2 entries made with a large enough single to make the dives.

One of the original poster's questions asked if the second dive of the day after a cylinder change was another dive the answer here is also yes.

Some of the confusion may stem from the asinine industry term "2 tank dive" The term of course really depicts a 2 dive outing or trip. I remember seeing that term before I got involved and had visions of a DM swapping your cylinder on the bottom to extend the bottom time. It's a common misunderstanding.

Pete

 

[Bob DBF]

Log them the way you you feel is right and the instructor can decide what he feels are relevant prerequisites for his class.

The point is to go out and get experience diving, the rest will sort itself out.



Bob
--------------------
I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[Frosty]

To me a dive is defined quite simply by a period of time spent in the water with scuba gear on. getting out of the water and back in and its a new dive. So a training dive where we might go up and down a couple of times is one dive.
My shortest dive was 5 minutes when the DM lost the bomi we were to dive on.

 

[Wolfie]

30 feet for 5 minutes is one of my funniest entries. There was 1 new diver, her buddy retrieving gear and my buddy poorly weighted. I watched this group of goons go up and down a couple minutes until we could gather together and surface. The next dive went quite well..
another entry was a 20' 8 min dive in 2' viz. after we hit 10' things were going pear shaped but we had to wait for boat traffic to let up around us. It was one of those days you just say "it's lunch time, right?"

 

[johnatabc]

For what its worth, I record pool dives if I have learned something from them, but do not include them in the cumulative total.



Typed on a keyboard, so all spelling mistakes are my own.

 

[Divedoggie]

A dive should be planned and then executed. You determine where the dive will take place, the depth, the time, the exposure protection, the goal, the surface interval.

A repetitive dive can be achieved without getting out of the water or swapping a tank, if back gas allows and a surface interval spent floating on the surface is part of the plan.

A single cenote dive may involve surfacing in multiple subterranean rooms. The planned dive involved an overall shallow profile with multiple small ascents and descents. Still one dive.

A planned dive may end up being shorter and shallower than the actual plan due to special circumstances. As others have stated, this can and likely should still be a logged dive.

Can a pool dive be a dive? Maybe. My dive partner and I have a contract with the city aquatics center. The pool is huge and deep, so the cost of draining and refilling the pool for maintenance is very high. Instead of draining the pool, we do maintenance like gluing new tiles on the walls and floors, and cleaning the undersides of the bulkheads, etc., while underwater using scuba equipment.
The job requires planning and often involves a high level of task loading. For fun and challenge, we accomplish all of the tasks while staying neutrally buoyant and balanced. My computer read 14' for 70 minutes. I didn't log it, but it is real time experience.
If someone logged the same pool dive in submission for further training, I'd likely accept it.
Same with public aquariums.