The Importance of Logging your Dives. The Advantages for new divers (and old)

How do you prefer to log your dives?


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Gary_Ward

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Scuba Instructor
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Do you log your dives when you go diving? Many people do and its a great thing for you too. Here Andre talks Dean through the advantages of logging dives as a beginner, using either old fashioned paper or digital applications.

What are your thoughts on logging? What are your favourite apps if you log digitally? Please leave your comments below:

 
I will write down new weighting if I change equipment. Thats it the note will say the new equipment, salt of fresh water and weight if it needs to go up or down.
 
I'm using MacDive downloading directly from my dive computer (Eon Core)

I don't use every feature but like to keep a basic log to be able look back upon gear used, weight, critters etc
 
I haven't logged a dive on paper since my last PADI class, 12 or so years ago. There are a couple of hundred sitting in Shearwater Cloud if anyone ever cares.
 
I use old fashioned pen and paper because it allows me to write what I want about each dive.

Depending on the dive, there are different things I write about each one. Sometimes I write about where I was, what I saw, and who I was with. Sometimes I write about tasks or skills I practiced or attempted. Often I write about stuff I did wrong. So it's part diary, part reference, part confessional, part reminders and resolutions.

Sometimes I write about lessons learned. For example, last week I conducted a search in zero vis for the rudder that fell off a friend's boat. Even though we didn't find it, I think we executed the search very well. My lesson learned pertained to turning up the brightness and reviewing alarm parameters on my computers before low vis dives because during the hour-plus that I was crawling through lake muck in expanding circles with a metal detector, I couldn't read anything on either of my computers. One of them has the PSI numbers turn to red when you get low on air, but I didn't remember the threshold, and didn't know when the audible alarm would sound. I could barely discern that the numbers hadn't turned red yet, but other than that, I didn't have any information on my air consumption or anything else pertaining to the dive.

I refer back to it often, especially when deciding what to wear and how much weight to use.
 
I use a paper logbook (on waterproof paper so I can keep it on me to record details asap after the dive) and I also back up my dive computer to a computer logbook so I can see the profile and have a secondary record
 
I did log everything since when I started (in 1975) until when I became a professional instructor (10 years later, in 1985).
Then I was overwhelmed, and I simply gave up, as I was doing more than 200 dives per year, and simply there was no time to waste writing notes on them.
Now I understand it was a pity, as my memory fades, and having those recordings could help me keeping those nice memories.
Here the log of my original 10 years of recreational activity: http://www.angelofarina.it/Public/Underwater-Certifications/Logbook_1975-1985.pdf
 
I fall into the no log category. No one has ever asked to see one and I never felt the need to keep a diary. If I were doing more advanced or technical diving I probably would.
 
I have logged every dive (not pool of course) since dive 1 in 2005 OW Course on paper (2 full books now). I do so because PADI said so.
I fill out the basic info. (bottom time, temp., etc.) and add what shells I may have found, flounders speared, other stuff seen.
I don't write in anything regarding weighting, exposure suit, etc. That rarely changes and I write that on a separate (one) sheet of paper.
I Xerox all log entries and put the copies in our "fire box" in case I ever lose my log book(s) or the house burns down. That is my backup.
My log book never goes near water. I have a separate sheet of paper in the car for data and transfer it to the book when I get home. For boat dives I have a small paper & pencil kept in a jar in my "dry bag".
As 95% or more of my dives are to familiar sites and 30' deep or less, I have no real reason to keep logs, other than to compare water temps. from one year to the next and to satisfy my OCD.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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