Do you log ‘gear test’ dives?

[MichaelMc]

Uh...is "tea bagging" the correct term, or "sand bagging"? Cause those have 2 entirely different definitions where I come from.

Some googling, with scuba added..., turned up this 2011 version of this thread.

In and out of water for minimum depth and time needed, like making tea.

PADI logged dive??

Just use some integrity and only log real dives. "Teabagging" is a derogatory term for people who go in and out of the water for a minimum depth and time in order to accumulate a large number of dives. Please don't do that. Please try to accumulate real experience in real dive sites so that the number means something.

When you make tea, you put a tea bag in a cup for a few minutes and then take it out.

When people are trying to reach a total number of dives for some purpose related to number rather than quality (like the minimum number of dives required to be a DM), they may choose to do the same--enter the water for a minimum depth and time, come out, have a short surface interval, go back in for that minimum depth and time, come out, have a short surface interval...

They can thereby rack up the required number of dives in a hurry without actually getting any real experience that way.

I did not invent the term. It has been around for a while.

 

[TMHeimer]

I've said many times before...."What to log". MAN, the posts go on and on. I log everything I do that's not pool. That's just me. Nobody cares, but it's amazing how we like to write about it. Oops, I just did yet again....

 

[Scuba Scott]

Uh...is "tea bagging" the correct term, or "sand bagging"? Cause those have 2 entirely different definitions where I come from.

LOL
Yes it also has a different meaning where I am from and while you are dunking yourself up and down like a tea bag to increase your dive count, it is also intended as a derogatory term.

 

[admikar]

If I have computer on my hand I will log it in my paper log too, to lazy to sync dive numbers between the two.

This is a profile of my hardest dive so far. Visibility 0,5m, crawling through submerged trees and crap, body SAR. Lot of ups and downs as you can see, with lot of surface intervals for coordinating with surface team. It has a value to me, so it is logged. If someone wants to discredit it, I don't care.

 

[boulderjohn]

According to the PADI tables, the maximum times for the deeper recreational dives are as follows:

• 110 feet - 16 minutes
• 120 feet - 13 minutes
• 130 feet - 10 minutes
• 140 feet - 8 minutes.

According to the logging concept used on those dives, dive time ends when the diver begins the direct ascent to the surface, so the total time of the dive could not be longer than those times.

If you are of the belief that a dive must be at least 20 minutes long to be logged, then you cannot ever log a recreational dive deeper than 100 feet when using those tables. For the deepest of those dives, even if you counted the full time of the dive, including the safety stop, you would not reach 20 minutes.

[Note: with the change to computers and the use of multi-level dive profiles, it is now normal to count the total time in the water as dive time, and PADI includes that in its instructions for logging training dives.]

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I never understood the concept of a dive ending when you begin the ascent. Offgassing does not begin at the greatest depth, and sometimes my ascent is longer than the time spent on the bottom. I always count the time from the moment I descend until I surface again.

 

[boulderjohn]

I never understood the concept of a dive ending when you big the ascent. Offgassing does not begin at the greatest depth, and sometimes my ascent is longer than the time spent on the bottom. I always count the time from the moment I descend until I surface again.

The answer to that is simple. When tables were devised, that is how decompression was measured. Divers were tested doing certain bottom times at certain depths followed by ascents at specific ascent rates. Tables were created based on that research. How else would you make a table that people could follow easily?

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I always thought of the maximum times allowed as simply the bottom portion of a dive and planned accordingly. In my logbook I would write down the entire time spent underwater.

 

[boulderjohn]

I always thought of the maximum times allowed as simply the bottom portion of a dive and planned accordingly. In my logbook I would write down the entire time spent underwater.

My wild guess is that 90% of the population did that, as did I, but...

If you look at an actual log book given to beginning divers, you will see that the dive time portion is set up to use for planning dives using tables. It has a place to put in the bottom time and a place for the ascent/safety stop. The bottom time, not the total time, was the time you used to plan your next dive. The bottom time, not the total time, told you your pressure group at the end of the dive. You would than use your surface interval to calculate your allowed bottom time (not total time) for the next dive.

The only other remote way that matters (and it isn't much) is in cumulative bottom time. You were also supposed to write your bottom time in a separate section to add it to the total bottom time you had accumulated before that. I assume this was to be consistent with logbooks for pilots and boat skippers, who I believe are required to do the same thing. In diving, the only time I have ever heard of total cumulative bottom time being a factor was about 10 or so years ago, when (IIRC) the guy who was then in charge of selecting volunteer divers for a major city aquarium said he looked at the diver's cumulative bottom time as a more important factor than the number of dives in pre-screening applicants.

I still log dives. My entries are usually pretty skimpy, but for some reason I still have cumulative time. It is total time, since in the dives I do the time actually spent on the very bottom is really meaningless.

 

[TMHeimer]

I think I asked this years ago---Does anyone know of any agency defining what an "official" dive is. Ie: 20 feet for 20 minutes, etc. (I've also heard 15' for 20 minutes). So, if I'm at 14' and it's basically shallow, I look for a spot that's 15' deep so my dive will "count". A lot of nonsense, no?