How do so many folks have so many dives

[100days-a-year]

I extrapolate from days I normally get in x number in a normal day to get totals but as so many have said experience is subjective and skill is more impoertant than any number.I dive with guys who have thousands mostly or my wife with a couple thousand.Not everyone is as lucky as us to live in FL and to be free to dive as much,nor be crew or captain on a commercial dive boat most of the last 10 years.It's not a competition,it's a lifestyle.

 

[Octopusprime]

I'm skeptical too... I frequently hear people talking about how they have a thousand dives. It's pretty tough for someone that doesn't dive professionally to consistently do 100 dives per year. Probably, only the top 5% of divers can dive like that for 10 years. And, they would need to be a year round diver too, not just a warm weather diver. Only a percentage of divers are year-round divers or divers that will dive in less than ideal conditions. A fair weather diver would need to be in the water every weekend possible. I'm sure there are some out there doing it; but again, they're the top 5% of divers.

I've had some downtime recently due to an ear infection followed by remodeling a house. But, I've had a few 100 dive years in the not too distant past when I was consumed by diving. It's pretty hard to do 100/yr diving casually/occasionally. I live in one of the best dive locations in the US, Miami, with outstanding dive opportunity/weather/conditions, and I dive year-round. I've been diving in Miami since 1998, certified in the late 1980s. During that time, I've taken many a dive class to work up to full Trimix and cave. Look at my dive count. I will probably hit 900 some time next year if I can keep life from getting in the way...

if you have access to diving that does not require a boat charter it is easy to get 5 dives in a day. If you do 5 dives 50 dives is only 10 days or 5 weekends. I only get out 2 weekends a month and get in about 50 dives a year.

 

[Stoo]

In my case, I've been diving for (almost) 41 years. Two of those years were spent instructing in the Caribbean where I logged something like 600 dives a year. I spent two summers working as a commercial diver during University and logged a ton of hours in the water. Then I taught diving for about 25 years, during a time when it was common to have 18 students in a course and I was doing 6 - 8 courses a year, and dove with all of those students, plus my fun stuff. I rented and then bought a house in Tobermory over 30 years ago and I dive there pretty much every weekend from mid-May through October, then carry on in more sheltered waters until there's too much snow to launch my boat. I take at least 2 dive trips a year, and often more (Four this year... Roatan over the New Year, Belize coming up in 3 weeks, a week in the Gaspe (Gulf of St. Lawrence) in July and another week in British Columbia this October...and I log 3 - 4 dives a day on those.) Over the years, I'd estimate I've done 14 liveaboards, with 20 - 25 dives on each.

I'm 59 years old, and managed to log 109 dives this past year and that was a pretty typical year.

I should add that I don't live less than 3.5 hours from decent diving, I never logged pool dives, and I haven't done a dive in a quarry for 20 years.

Add them all up and I've logged almost 5100 dives, and I know at least a few "non-professional" that have a lot more than that. I heard David Doubilet speak recently (NG Photog) and he has logged 25,000 dives!

Some of us just dive really a lot, whenever we can. We have made significant investments in time and equipment to support our addictions... gear, boats, an extra house, and travel. And we stick at it for a long time!

As someone said up above... We just "keep chugging away..."

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I agree that it takes a lot of chugging along. I plan to make dive number 2000 next weekend. It's taken 25 years to accumulate these dives. I never counted class dives, pool dives or any dive that wasn't for my own fun. I've also never made more than three dives in a day, so it takes a long time to add them up. At this rate I'll reach 5000 dives around my 104th birthday as long as I don't slow down.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I figure I'll hit 5,000 dives at around age 70. I'm 63 now and will be doing my 3,500th dive sometime next month ... I started at age 49 ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Wow... I would rather do one or two nice long dives in a day than 5 that would have to be shorter. Then dive numbers don't matter to me... the amount of time I get to enjoy diving is what counts I have met people who will do a dive the "requisite depth and minimum time" surface for 5 minutes then drop down for another "dive" :doh: I don't see the point. They may claim thousands of "dives" don't care.. all that matters to me is that a person is competent to do the dive they are about to do.

Each to their own I'd say. If a person wants to inflate numbers and it makes them feel good ... go for it. If a person wants to do longer, shallower, deeper, technical, recreational, overhead or whatever kinds of diving they enjoy that is great as long as they make sure they are developing good dive plans and conducting dives they are qualified to do by skill set.

 

[R-balljunkie]

I figure I'll hit 5,000 dives at around age 70. I'm 63 now and will be doing my 3,500th dive sometime next month ... I started at age 49 ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

late bloomer, eh

---------- Post added February 24th, 2015 at 05:42 AM ----------

if you have access to diving that does not require a boat charter it is easy to get 5 dives in a day. If you do 5 dives 50 dives is only 10 days or 5 weekends. I only get out 2 weekends a month and get in about 50 dives a year.

5 dives a day...whew, im tired thinking about a 10 day marathoner.

 

[Stoo]

5 dives a day...whew, im tired thinking about a 10 day marathoner.

Five a day on a southern liveaboard is pretty easy actually. The biggest hazard is crotch-rot from being wet all the time. I was diving in BC last October and managed four each day... in a drysuit. No problem sleeping at night, that's for certain. I'm leading a group back again this year, and we've added a day to the trip (six days @ 4 dives a day) plus I'm going out two days early to dive with some friends. It's a sad addiction.

We just got back from Belize and I was complaining to our dive operator that we only did three dives a day, but I supplemented them with two 90-minute dives from the dock... In only seven feet of water, but I still got some cool pics there... This is "Stumpy" who came into the shallows every night to feed...

 

[Stoo]

Wow... I would rather do one or two nice long dives in a day than 5 that would have to be shorter. Then dive numbers don't matter to me... the amount of time I get to enjoy diving is what counts I have met people who will do a dive the "requisite depth and minimum time" surface for 5 minutes then drop down for another "dive" :doh: I don't see the point. They may claim thousands of "dives" don't care.. all that matters to me is that a person is competent to do the dive they are about to do.

Each to their own I'd say. If a person wants to inflate numbers and it makes them feel good ... go for it. If a person wants to do longer, shallower, deeper, technical, recreational, overhead or whatever kinds of diving they enjoy that is great as long as they make sure they are developing good dive plans and conducting dives they are qualified to do by skill set.

You aren't the first person to "accuse" folks with a lot of dives of somehow cooking the books... I don't quite understand the attitude, and I certainly can't speak for anyone but myself, and the group of people I tend to dive with, but that simply isn't the case. Most of our dives up here in the Great Lakes are serious dives. (Last Sunday, I did two dives. The water was 39° F at depth, and 46° at the surface. Dive 1 was 155' deep, with a bottom time of about 24 minutes, and a total time of 55 minutes. My first deco stop was at 50'. My second dive was to 110' also for about 25 minutes. Total time on that one was about 48 minutes.... I was wearing twin steel 85s, with a stage of 100% 02. These were entirely typical of most of my weekends. I only did one dive on Saturday... it was 180' and I was in the water for 58 minutes.)

When Mrs. Stoo and I travel, virtually all of our dives are more than an hour long, and we leave the water out of courtesy to other guests, since we both get good "mileage". If we are on a liveaboard, where time isn't an issue, we do five dives daily, including every night. Some dives are 70 to 90 minutes long. On my trip to BC last October, the average depth of the four dives I did each day was 98', and the average duration was 62 minutes (according to Shearwater).

I agree that the numbers of dives doesn't mean squat and I certainly don't look down at someone who logs 10 or 20 dives a year. I like being underwater and I spend as much time there as I can.

This is a selfie I snapped on Sunday at 155' on the Forest City in Tobermory. I neglected to mention that all three dives were solos.

 

[FiddlerOnTheRoof]

As someone said up above... We just "keep chugging away..."
Up to a year ago I was diving a few times per week since the 1980's and 99% of the times I go diving I plan on multiple dives on a single day.
I have a few tanks, so a diving day for me is an all day event for me. Most people I know go out for a dive or two early morning and rush home. Not me! A diving day for me starts early morning and goes on all day. If I do shore diving, most times I'll do at least 2 dives in the morning and 2 in the afternoon after lunch with my dive buddy.

That's the great thing about diving for me...

Get up early and join your dive buddy for breakfast, next get to the water get two dives in... then take a break for lunch and after a couple of hours go back for two more dives. Sometimes we do an afternoon dive and the wait a few hours eat a snack and do a night dive. Repeat the next day especially if it's a weekend event.

We sometimes do a weekend away with both our families and do 4 dives on Friday, 4 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday.. That's 12 dives in one weekend. Since we are both self employed we "call in sick" on Monday to recover from all the diving and Sunday night beers!

Peter