What do you mean I can't log my practice dives????

[UserNameBella]

Thanks for all the responses.

Just to reiterate, I have enough dives that are fun dives to start my divemaster. I actually have 70 full recreational dives right now, including my check out dives for advanced and OW. Of those dives, about 10 are in the Atlantic ocean, 50 are caribbean dives, and about ten are cold water river dives here in Canada. In addition to my full dives I have done four training dives at my local lake.

Because I was able to do that many dives since my original OW cert. I really want to get more experience and skill before I start my DM program this January.

The instructor is an old school guy, but he is not teaching my DM program. I will be going back to the Caribbean for that. If I'm diving every day I want the diving to be enjoyable.

Come to think of it. For divers who aren't so lucky to live on a shallow clear lake maybe the dive shops that offer classes or the dive clubs should have pool time for experienced divers to practice the skills, regardless of whether they are going to do DM in the future. It can be rather surprising to try these skills when you haven't used them since OW. And if you really want to peeve off a DM during a vacation dive, doing drills at 40 ft and screwing them up royally would be a great way to do it.



ETA: Almost everyone I know uses paper dive logs. I wanted to use the PADI scuba earth, but after an hour trying to log one dive and not being able to because the program actually isn't that great (it wouldn't recognize the dive site) I gave up. Paper is faster and easier. I will probably continue to log until I am old and grey. I like it, it's more like journalling for me.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Maybe the instructor is upset because you can do those skills midwater in ten feet or less and he can't? Seen a few whose buoyancy and trim are so bad that they'd have problems with it. Usually the same ones that plant students on the bottom with too much lead and teach on their knees.

 

[Wijbrandus]

This has been a useful thread for me as well. Someday, I'd like to go pro as a semi-retirement thing to keep me busy. However, I stopped logging dives after earning my MSD card. In fact, I don't even have a log book anymore, I just track everything in my ScubaPro software. So I guess I do, it's just electronic, and not very detailed. Although half the dives don't have a location more detailed than "Maui", "Monterey" or some local lake.

I think I will get a paper log book for this next week's dive trip, and see if I can't start collecting stamps again. It might be nice to look back someday and see how bad of a diver I was right now.

 

[Crowley]

Maybe the instructor is upset because you can do those skills midwater in ten feet or less and he can't? Seen a few whose buoyancy and trim are so bad that they'd have problems with it. Usually the same ones that plant students on the bottom with too much lead and teach on their knees.

Think that's a bit disingenuous, Jim. PADI have standards as to what constitutes a "dive" which have been mentioned above. One could argue using an analogy about driving a car. You can drive a car around an empty parking lot for hours and hours and you are practising and using the controls and getting used to the vehicle but that's not the same as driving through busy traffic in central london. Same way making practice dives in a shallow pool is really great for training, and anybody who does this should be commended, but it doesn't carry the same risks and responsibilities as diving in deeper water. Although the margins for error are not entirely eliminated, they substantially reduced.

An instructor who says you cannot or must not log these shallow water training dives is in error - you can - you can log whatever you want to log - but it is correct to say that by PADI standards they don't count as "logged dives". Suggesting that an instructor is somehow incompetent, is unable to conduct skills mid-water or who can't have his students do the same, simply because he or she says that these dives don't count towards the tally required by standards is simply wrong.

Cheers

C.

 

[boulderjohn]

I would not be too hard on the instructor. The technicalities of logging a dive after you are certified is not exactly a focal point of instructor training. In fact, if it is even mentioned during instructor training it would be a quirk of that particular instructor trainer. I doubt if any agency has this as a part of its standard training. It would be very easy for anyone reading the standard for dives done during classes and somehow think that the rule might also apply to other logged dives. I have been on ScubaBoard for 11 years now, and I can't begin to estimate how many times this topic has come up in threads, and just about every time it does, someone mistakenly trots out the rule for dives done during classes and then has to be corrected. This thread is a rare one in which the correct information was provided immediately.

The instructor might be a darned good one who unfortunately had this one minor misconception. I myself just got certified to teach PADI tech courses this year after being a TDI tech instructor before that, and I have already committed two misreadings of the standards at that level of importance and been corrected. It happens.

 

[RJP]

Think that's a bit disingenuous, Jim. PADI have standards...

If a tree falls in the forest and Jim isn't there to hear it... is it still PADI's fault?

 

[UserNameBella]

Maybe the instructor is upset because you can do those skills midwater in ten feet or less and he can't? Seen a few whose buoyancy and trim are so bad that they'd have problems with it. Usually the same ones that plant students on the bottom with too much lead and teach on their knees.

I am pretty certain the instructor in question can do the drills himself without being planted on the bottom of the pool. Whether I can do them mid-water at this point is another story all together.

As for collecting stamps. I have none in my log book. Hopefully this won't be an issue. If the dive shop I do my dive master at really cares they can call around where have dove I guess. I'm pretty memorable as far as vacation divers go.

Back to the dive thing. I don't have any of the PADI instructor or divemaster manuals in my possession. So I have no idea what PADI says a dive is. I'm actually shocked they have a definition.
There actually is some pretty neat things to see in shallower water so I hope they don't disclude dives that aren't made to a certain depth, but it seems like they might.

The only non official dive site ( as in not a marked dive site used frequently by a dive shop or dive club) diving I feel comfortable doing in my area are shallow dives in lakes. Despite having close to 45 lakes in my town alone, there is a lot of boat traffic anywhere where the water is more than fifteen feet deep. And I hate to say it, but there are some ignorant fools around here and even if they knew what a dive flag was (they don't) I don't trust them to stay away from one. I have seen ten year old's driving fishing boats around the lake, so I'm going to guess they don't know much about flags either.

I wonder if PADI has a committee of divers that just sit around and think up rules?

 

[boulderjohn]

Back to the dive thing. I don't have any of the PADI instructor or divemaster manuals in my possession. So I have no idea what PADI says a dive is. I'm actually shocked they have a definition.
There actually is some pretty neat things to see in shallower water so I hope they don't disclude dives that aren't made to a certain depth, but it seems like they might.
...

I wonder if PADI has a committee of divers that just sit around and think up rules?

How carefully have you read this tread? Did you just respond to the first post without reading any of the explanations that followed? No, PADI does not have the rules you seem to think they do.

 

[Hawkwood]

...
There actually is some pretty neat things to see in shallower water so I hope they don't disclude dives that aren't made to a certain depth, but it seems like they might...

How can you possibly come up with that conclusion?

 

[UserNameBella]

How carefully have you read this tread? Did you just respond to the first post without reading any of the explanations that followed? No, PADI does not have the rules you seem to think they do.

Well Ex cuuuuse me!



Since I have read every response....here is my conclusion. I am going to continue to log these training dives in 10 ft of water. But since I don't need to pad my dive book ( I wouldn't any ways) I am just going to mark them different and just not add them to the count. That way there when they look at my log to see if I've done the correct number and varying types of dives they don't potentially think I'm crazy for logging 10 ft dives, but I still get to chart my progress. Even if PADI doesn't care that they were to 10 ft, people might not look favorably upon this.
Luckily for me, it seems as though once I finish the schooling portion of all this, logging dives will be for funzies only.