Recording dives ?

[groovieguy]

Here is my question, I do a lot of dives in shallow rivers, 22' max. Should I put all of these in my
Dive Log?
I currently only put my Saltwater dives in it which they are how can I say normal dives, to 60'

Thanks
Joe

 

[TMHeimer]

I put such dives in my log. I have done very few river dives, but they certainly are different. Consensus is 15' for 20 mins. is an official dive. Makes sense to log them. Aside from just keeping your own records you may want to take a course that requires a certain # of logged dives.

 

[Scott]

Sure, why not?
The only requirement with depth and time are training dives, all others are your choice.
I wouldn't log a pool dive.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

GroovieGuy - your log book - your choice. We go back and forth on this one - did you get wet, did you learn something, if yes your choice. Some log everything as a look back on time and advancement in dives or conditions - others do not log dives. No one will look at your log book unless you show them - therefore your choice. I log things I want to remember but to be fair - I dont long pool dives either as stated above unless it was really cool - like an aquarium dive or perhaps the worlds largest pool.

 

[Lorenzoid]

If you do a search, you will find a lot of previous threads on what constitutes a loggable dive. Opinions vary greatly. There is no consensus. Unless you have some specific need to prove you have done certain dives--which most of us do not--then what dives you log is purely a personal decision. You are free to log or not log whatever dives you want. The main reason to log dives is to record information that might later be useful for some reason or another. If you make a practice of logging truly inconsequential dives, you are not doing yourself a favor. But I don't think 22 feet in a river, where you were probably dealing with current and some kind of goal, like looking for fossils or swimming with manatees or whatever, is inconsequential at all. If you do a lot of that kind of diving, and want to remember where you've been and what you did, what weights you had, what suit you wore, etc., then consider logging those dives.

My own personal threshold for what constitutes a loggable dive is what I call my "rule of 60": I log a dive only if the sum of the maximum depth and the number of minutes of bottom time is at least about 60. So, for example, I'd log a dive to a mere 10 feet only if my bottom time exceeded about 50 minutes. I figure if I'm breathing compressed air underwater on a scuba unit for that long, then I probably had some goal for doing it that I'd want to record for future reference. For example, maybe it was a training dive where I was practicing a particular skill.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

The main reason to log dives is to record information that might later be useful for some reason or another. If you make a practice of logging truly inconsequential dives, you are not doing yourself a favor.

Therein lies the rub. If I have a free flow or need to thumb dive and I did not reach your "60" threshold - me personally I am logging the dive - I want to remember what boneheaded thing I did wrong that I needed to thumb that dive. 2 mins into the dive I thumb - I want to remember and avoid it next time. But hey - your not looking at my log book - it is for me...

 

[DivemasterDennis]

You should log every dive. A dive is any outing where you are breathing compressed air at pressure- and 22' counts. Many SB members have few isf any saltwater dive. Many of us, like me, about equally split between local fresh water diving and traveling to dive destination s in the salt. Some people log "pool dives" - those should NOT be logged. Get in the habit of logging every dive, no matter the salt content of the water, the depth, or the duration. The only good log is a complete log.
DivemasterDennis

 

[scubadiver888]

Why are you logging dives? I log dives when I'm somewhere new, see something interesting, go diving with a new buddy, record weights for a new configuration, etc. How long and deep isn't as important to me as who I was diving with, how cold the water was, how much exposure protections I was wearing, etc.

On the other hand, if you are logging dives to qualify for say Rescue Diver or Divemaster entry criteria then it is just a matter of whether or not it 'counts' as a dive. I had over a 100 dives when I applied for my DM but I hadn't logged most of them. I needed 100 dives to complete my DM. So once I started doing my DM training I logged every dive 20' for 20 minutes or greater. TMHeimer indicates it is 15' for 20 minutes but my instructor told me it was 20' for 20 minutes. Maybe she was wrong or maybe things have changed.

 

[TMHeimer]

Yeah, that 15' for 20 mins.--I just recall hearing that said several times. Don't know if any of the agencies have anything on this written down somewhere. Anyone know?

 

[Lorenzoid]

Therein lies the rub. If I have a free flow or need to thumb dive and I did not reach your "60" threshold - me personally I am logging the dive - I want to remember what boneheaded thing I did wrong that I needed to thumb that dive. 2 mins into the dive I thumb - I want to remember and avoid it next time. But hey - your not looking at my log book - it is for me...

Oh, absolutely--I would log that, too. It's my "rule" and I can break it when I feel like an exception calls for it

Some people log "pool dives" - those should NOT be logged. . . .

That's a bold statement. I think some people might want to log some of their pool dives. You say they "should NOT"?

If I'm in a 10' pool for an intensive hour practicing some skills with a buddy or trying to get my weighting dialed in with some new gear, is it less useful for me to log that dive and record my thoughts about how it went than the one where I'm drifting along a shallow tropical reef like a zombie? So I do log SOME pool dives. Out of the nearly 300 dives presently in my logbook, I would suspect I have a handful of dives that were either in an actual freshwater or saltwater pool or in a freshwater spring with nearly pool-like conditions where my depth was in the 10-20 feet range. If there's some amount of information that I might find useful in the future, such as how I weighted myself or how I performed when trying something out, I record the pool dive.