Number of Dives vs. Dive Hours

[>--Zen-Archer-->]

I would like to get some of your opinions in regards tracking your experience level either from number of dives or from number of dive hours. I know from the majority the folks I dive with the number of dives seems to show the key of experience. Many say it’s easier that way since it’s hard to track time if you don’t have a dive computer. But I can see a benefit tracking my experience by hours. Like with other types of activities such as flying, experience is logged by hours and not the number of flights...

I have not real strong opinion on either way but was interested in getting some of your feedback on this....



Your thoughts?

 

[Diver Dennis]

I dive warm water and that is much different than diving in cold water, in that my dives tend to be quite a bit longer. Your SAC will be much lower in warm water. It depends where you dive. Flying can be a bit deceptive as well, a pilot might be doing short haul flights with many take offs and landings. An International pilot might have double the hours but most of those hours are on autopilot. (I'm not a pilot)

 

[dive_lover88]

it may differ from person to person...i'm basically ok with both as partly i'm limited by the dive time as i'm using a charter and they limit it to max an hr,most of the time is 30-45 mins,with me having half a tank left.
If i'm not wrong,some tech courses require a minimum dive time. As i'm interested in tech,so my bottom time is also something i keep note of.

 

[spectrum]

Well lets start with knowing your dive time. If you are not diving with some sort of time piece you are on a slippery slope. It's true that a novice on a conservative shore dive will run out of air before the NDL is anywhere in sight but you should really be diving with some sort of watch, they are cheap.

Certain skills, setting up, breaking down, entry and exit are one shot per dive activities and you hone these with lots of dives. Getting relaxed, buoyancy and general control, navigation and all of the reasons you go down there come from dive duration. Unless there is a reason to go deep defer to longer shallow dives that give you lots of bubble time.

So dive a lot and log it all.

Pete

 

[Wildcard]

Some are masters at 50 dives some suck at 500 dives. Numbers just don't mean that much.

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

For a normal dive history I don't think theres a big difference between hours or dives. Just get a computer and record both.

Unlike flying, in which flights range from minutes to many hours, most dives average neary an hour anyway (40 - 70 minutes).

IMHO the shorter dives are often the deeper dives and should recieve just as much training credit as a long dive bumbling along in the shallows.

I don't think theres any real difference between a diver stating they have 500 dives or a diver stating they have 500 hours - its how you dive that matters. Unless someone is jumping in and out of the water to get their dive number up to some minimum (as seen in some DM canidates).

Cheers,
Rohan.

 

[Ken abucs]

Dynamic phases are the most dangerous aspects of any activity. For flying, it's take offs and landings. For diving it's ascents and descents.

By the same token, the more variety you get in an activity, the more experience you get. So if you dive 250 dive in the same quarry, it's less valuable that a few dives in the cold, a few in the tropics, a few boat dives a few shore dives and a few drift dives. Someone with 50 different dives would be more experienced tha someone who did 250 repetitions of the same dive.

So my point is that either case, dives or hours, it's just a number. Pilots track hours, because that's what they do. Divers track the dive count, 'cuz that's what we do. It's just part of our lingua franca.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Quite frankly, the numbers don't mean much to me anyway. A diver with 60 dives in the last year should be more experienced than a diver with 200 over 20 years. The best gauge of experience, in rec diving at least, is to see someone in the water. All the talk and numbers are just so much yada yada yada.

 

[TheFoggyMask]

it may differ from person to person...i'm basically ok with both as partly i'm limited by the dive time as i'm using a charter and they limit it to max an hr,most of the time is 30-45 mins,with me having half a tank left.
If i'm not wrong,some tech courses require a minimum dive time. As i'm interested in tech,so my bottom time is also something i keep note of.

GUE tech 1 requires 100 dives, no mention of hours in there at all.

Some are masters at 50 dives some suck at 500 dives. Numbers just don't mean that much.

I know a kid back home who claimed to be in a his dive master class when hes been diving for less than six months. I wouldn't trust him with a spoon let alone being a dive master.

 

[Gary D.]

I dive warm water and that is much different than diving in cold water, in that my dives tend to be quite a bit longer. Your SAC will be much lower in warm water. It depends where you dive. Flying can be a bit deceptive as well, a pilot might be doing short haul flights with many take offs and landings. An International pilot might have double the hours but most of those hours are on autopilot. (I'm not a pilot)

That’s not necessarily true. Just gauging the amount of air used by temperature of the water doesn’t work.

Considering everything is the same, like temp, depth, activity, altitude and conditions it still doesn’t work.

I’ll use myself as an example. I use more air on a nice leisurely dive in Florida than I do in cold water or under the ice. In tropical waters one tends to wear less thermal protection. After a period of time even that nice warm water can chill the body a little to a lot.

Under the ice we have a great deal more thermal protection. If properly protected that cooling is no where near as fast as in the tropics. One problem we face in cold water is overheating.

If you have a good stable body temperature you will use less air. Warm water alone won’t mean less air usage.

I like to see people put together and take apart their gear more often. Shorter dives with lots of changes get one more familiar with their gear and can result in a more relaxed diver.

Long dives work on buoyancy and other skills but do very little for gear knowledge. Both need to be done on a regular basis so the diver gets a more rounded knowledge and experience.

Like your flying example, there needs to be a good mix. Anyone can fly and land but not everyone can take off, fly and land with the quality the majority would expect. Some can only make one landing. (and a real mess)

Gary D.