How do so many folks have so many dives

[R-balljunkie]

I'm a bit perplexed at looking at some folks profiles and seeing the amount of dives listed. I wholly understand dive instructors.....they are in the water doing pool sessions, guiding students week in and out. What I dont understand is folks in the midwest who have 2000 dives.


Granted, im closing in on 5 years of diving. Surely a lot of folks eclipse me by many fathoms, year wise. Ill admit in relative terms, I am a new diver.

However, I have access to diving 365 days a year. For the most part, I have dove (minimally) every single weekend for the last four years.

Question posed. How do some folks have so many dives without access all of the times? Diving in January in Des Moines is not a reality.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Those of us who have been diving for 10+ years and have only managed around 250 dives are rolling our eyes.

With respect to landlocked folks whose profiles indicate they have done thousands of dives, my guess is that they previously lived by the water. However, it is possible for the fortunate few who do two or three liveaboards every year to rack up that many dives in a decade or two. I was acquainted with someone like that.

 

[ffdiver]

Some instructors fluff up their numbers too. I normally count all the dives I do in a day with a student as one dive but add up the hours. I've know some instructors to count every surface interval as a dive and now their 300th dive is the 2000th.

 

[AngloFish]

When the water is frozen over in Jan then you just need a chainsaw to get to it Believe it or not ice diving is quite popular in lakes/quarries so a fair bit of diving happens even when the water is frozen. Most of these sites have bad vis so when the freeze happens it contributes many factors to excellent visibility.
Some folks are just scuba nuts, I was doing 5+ a week for many years when I lived next to the St. Lawrence.

I'm a bit perplexed at looking at some folks profiles and seeing the amount of dives listed. I wholly understand dive instructors.....they are in the water doing pool sessions, guiding students week in and out. What I dont understand is folks in the midwest who have 2000 dives.


Granted, im closing in on 5 years of diving. Surely a lot of folks eclipse me by many fathoms, year wise. Ill admit in relative terms, I am a new diver.

However, I have access to diving 365 days a year. For the most part, I have dove (minimally) every single weekend for the last four years.

Question posed. How do some folks have so many dives without access all of the times? Diving in January in Des Moines is not a reality.

 

[bshmerlie]

I agree. Even three dives a week without missing a single week is only 156 dives a year. That means someone who has 2000 dives is diving every other day continuously for ten years. Now that's dedication.

 

[nimoh]

The divers on SB are a pretty diverse group. I know some landlocked divers in Minnesota that are former commercial divers and were close to making multiple dives every day at times in their life.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

I share the idea of time under water being a more significant statistic that the number of times I have descended below 5 meters on compressed air or another breathing gas. Also, I do not count dives in a swimming pool as dives or as time underwater. Some divers do. I will count a 25 minutes navigation training dive with an AOW class as a dive, but if I descend to retrieve a weight belt, or tighten a platform, I will combine two or three such events as a "support dive" and note the total bottom time. By my count I am just under 1000 dives. By the way others count I would be close to 2000. I do know this, I have as of this moment just over 700 hours under water on scuba, at least 20 feet deep or deeper ( max142), exclusive of pool time which is probably equal or greater in duration, and that is what I use to determine my experience level. But it's not worth a big debate. Let's just go diving!
DIvemasterDennis

 

[Colliam7]

Some instructors fluff up their numbers too. I normally count all the dives I do in a day with a student as one dive but add up the hours.

So, to be sure I understand: if you do two open water training dives on a day - e.g. Open water Dive One, and Open Water Dive Two, you do not log them as separate dives, rather you combine the time and log one dive? Or, you do three training dives for an AOW student - e.g. the PPB Adventure Dive in the morning, the Underwater Navigation Adventure Dive in the afternoon, and Night Adventure Dive that evening, you only log one dive?

 

[drbill]

Maybe some are snowbirds and spend a part of the year in warm water areas?

I, too, like the use of bottom time vs number of "dives." The past year or two I've been going for bottom time vs number of dives and many of my dives are 1 1/2 to over 2 hours in length.

 

[rivers]

I dive all year round. I've only been diving 5 years and i just passed the 500 dive mark. but i dive all year. for the past 3 years, i've had the luxury of living fairly close to an inland site. This year, I've done loads of diving weekends all summer, plus a trip to Croatia. It looks like I'll hit my goal of 150 dives this year as well.