POLL: How many dives per year do you consider a minimum necessary for skills not to degrade?

[GrafCanuck]

Really good question. I voted for 12 dives per year. Lots of variables in play here and there is really no 'right' answer. All I know is the more I dive, the more comfortable I am underwater. Plain and simple. Unfortunately I will go 6-8 months without diving and then my next dive is partially remembering what needs to go on and where. It is what it is. Dive as often as you can as one day you won't be able to.

 

[MichaelMc]

For someone conducting an impartial poll, your responses along the lines of roughy 'yes, practice is so important' 'who would you want to dive with' seem hints to the right answer from your view. And how many is just too few. I skipped reading your longer responses after the first few, as they seemed preaching one view. While I wanted to see the responses of several. Again, odd in one conducting a poll.

And it depends.
- The person who paddles about, maybe feeling they must come up when out of air?
- The person with 1000 dives at a very high level of precision? For a 30' dive? For a 300' dive?

 

[diverintheflesh]

@diverintheflesh :
So, why do you ask?

I don't really need to know, but am curious.
Your blocked profile offers no hints and I am a little bit worried if filling the poll might somehow in some way contribute to some sort of harder guidline for refresher courses... which is not necessarily what I would want to contribute to. To be clear, I am not stipulating or insinuating that. Just explaining one of several reasons why I ask: "why do you ask?".

Anyway, many other replies already do point out that, as so often, "that depends" is the only correct reply...

Thank you for your contribution.

I do work in the industry but would prefer answers to be genuine, not guided, or influenced, so I typically remain anonymous. My perspectives lean towards the technical and training as such, but I can guarantee that this information won't be used to tighten requirements in regards to refresher courses. Not only do I not have that kind of influence in the industry, I dont want it.

To that effect, certification is not required to dive. Craigslist, Scubaboard, and eBay are full of new and used equipment and there are videos online that teach one without the facilitation of an instructor. Online self-study programs are widely utilized, popular, and becoming the traditional means of education. The instruction of students in a classroom setting is becoming less common and even with 10 plus hours of water time, kneeling on the pool/ocean floor waiting one's turn is the norm. If 1/8 of the instructor's attention is all one gets, how much is really learned in the open water course?

From this perspective, a refresher course might not only be helpful, but be critical. Many know of someone that has been injured or died scuba diving, and as such the poll will only be used to encouraged divers to dive more... Definitely to encourage divers to seek out additional training.

 

[diverintheflesh]

For someone conducting an impartial poll, your responses along the lines of roughy 'yes, practice is so important' 'who would you want to dive with' seem hints to the right answer from your view. And how many is just too few. I skipped reading your longer responses after the first few, as they seemed preaching one view. While I wanted to see the responses of several. Again, odd in one conducting a poll.

And it depends.
- The person who paddles about, maybe feeling they must come up when out of air?
- The person with 1000 dives at a very high level of precision? For a 30' dive? For a 300' dive?

Thank you for your contribution.

I definitely have a bias and an opinion, but so does everyone else. There isn't a best or correct answer, but the results of the poll at its completion will speak for itself.

I will write about the results and my perspective and interpretation of them, but my goal is always, "dive more!" There isn't subterfuge in that. More dives can be better...

As far as responses from others leaning in one direction, that too can be a lesson for someone that only looks at the results superficially. If one was leaning towards a lower number of dives per year and thought that was the norm, they may choose to end up doing more dives when they see more leaning toward wanting or needing more per year.

Where one gets their perspective on what constitutes a minimum number per year might be influenced by the shop, the instructor, dive destinations, friends, and/or dive buddies... IMHO, the best reason to dive more is, diving is amazing!

 

[diverintheflesh]

It looks the bell curve is floating in the middle at this time...

 

[RyanT]

As a number of folks have already indicated, it's not an easy answer. Consider these two scenarios. Diver A packs in 40 dives in a month and then doesn't dive again for a year. Alternatively, Diver B dives 4x per month for 10 months out of the year. These are the same number of dives, but the diver who spread their dives out over the year will definitely have maintained their skill set much more so than the diver who crammed it all into one month. Consistency is important.

Now, let's add different dive conditions. Diver A, who does 100 dives in the same conditions over the year, is less likely to have a well-rounded skill set than Diver B who did 50 dives in very different conditions.

So, I'll conclude with saying that consistency and diving in variable conditions is a really good thing!

 

[Storker]

I couldn't vote. I think it depends on when in your dive "career". If you have dived regularly... say 50 to 100 dives a year in various sites for years and established your comfort /skill level a couple dives a year may be enough. If you only ever dive 4 dives a year you will probably never get there.

Same here. When I had fewer dives in my log, I could notice my skills (or, as I like to call it, "water feeling") deteriorated noticeably after just a month out of the water. And when I notice it myself, it's probably bad. These days, when I go for my shakedown dive because I've been dry for too long, I'm surprised I'm not worse than I think I am.

a couple of dives will bring the skills usage back but it definitely will take more dives to regain previous confidences.

Allow me to disagree and claim that it's the opposite. Confidence lasts longer than actual skills do.

"that depends" is the only correct reply

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner
</thread>

 

[diverintheflesh]

Same here. When I had fewer dives in my log, I could notice my skills (or, as I like to call it, "water feeling") deteriorated noticeably after just a month out of the water. And when I notice it myself, it's probably bad. These days, when I go for my shakedown dive because I've been dry for too long, I'm surprised I'm not worse than I think I am.



Allow me to disagree and claim that it's the opposite. Confidence lasts longer than actual skills do.


Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner

 

[Esprise Me]

I suspect there's a great degree of individual variation based on the person, not just the number of dives and how far apart they are.

I got certified in November and talked 3 friends into doing it with me. As of June, none of them had dived again since getting certified, but with the weather warming up they were open to the idea. I floated the idea of a refresher course, which Friend A said she absolutely felt she needed, but Friends B and C said they didn't feel they needed. I went diving recently with B and C and they did seem fine--skill level commensurate with newly-certified divers, but no worse.

Friends B and C introduced me to Friend D, who has done about 25 dives over 6 years, all in much warmer water than we have here. D joined us on the boat that day, and her skills were noticeably better than our newly-certified friends, and honestly probably as good as mine were after 25 dives even though I did my first 25 dives in a period of less than 6 months, and most of them locally. We all had a great time and I hope to get them out there again soon.

Now I have another friend, E, who's done something like a dozen or so dives over a few years and is thinking of joining our group on the next trip, but she is clearly nervous about not having help with setting up her gear or having a guide in the water. I don't know whether A and E would actually fare worse than B, C, and D, but they certainly seem to think so despite being similarly situated. (I do remember that A struggled with the skills in class more than I did, so I'm inclined to defer to her fears.) Even if their lack of confidence was unwarranted, though, being already close to the edge of their comfort envelope before anything goes wrong could put them at risk for panic, bolting for the surface, etc.

 

[Ayisha]

I couldn't answer either for the reasons mentioned throughout. It's not only the number of dives - it's what kind of dives they are, whether skills are practiced while task loaded, and how much time has lapsed between dives. Any experienced diver could jump in successfully after a long period away from diving, but will it be without skills erosion of more complicated tasks? They will probably not perform at the same level as when they were diving regularly and practicing task loaded skills.

As @Schwob said, "it depends".