How long is a dive?

[Zept]

Longer than a piece of string, I guess. But seriously, how long is your typical dive? I know bottom times depend on all sorts of things... depth, water temperature, equipment setup, goals, group policy and so on. I'm just curious to see what people consider 'typical' (normal, average, ideal... that sort of thing).

Zept

 

[metridium]

Typical used to be 50-60 minutes. Lately they've all been in the 75-100 minute range.

 

[Arduous]

My dives are usually in the 50 minute range. Sometimes a little more sometimes a little less.

 

[Former FLL Now MSP Diver]

There's a loaded question. It's like when non-divers who ask how long we can stay underwater for and I have to answer - it depends.

Looking at my logbook they range from 22 minutes to 54 minutes.
But since I got my computer, it's been getting longer. Beats diving off tables.

Marc

 

[JamesK]

That is really hard to say. Sometimes I do a 20 minute "play time" dive in the quarry working on a specific skill, or just hanging out. Other times I do 1 to 1. hour cave dives. It all depends on where I am diving.

 

[pipedope]

I do LOTS of dive in the "less than 2 minutes" range. A fair number in the 10 minutes to 30 minutes range. Dives of 30 to 90 minutes are common especially when I dive for fun. Some of my dives last more than an hour.

As most of my diving these days are commercial, I will be in the water long enough to get the required job done, no more, no less. This gets to one of the tricky parts of inland commercial diving, I often have to make LOTS of trips between the surface and 10-20'. The faster I can get them done the sooner the job is over and we can go home so quick ear clearing (and frequent) is key.

On long dives, (more than 2 hours) I find I really want something to eat but then the FFM or helmet shows one of the few drawbacks, can't easily eat in one.
OTOH I just tell the dive supervisor (over the comm link) that I need a break soon for food and water and at the nextopportunity he has me come up and then I usually get a good lunch.

Even a 1 minute dive is better than no dive at all!

 

[Ranz]

Usually 50-60 mins for us.
Ranz

 

[Amanda]

My longest one was in a 33°Celsius water in Southern Pacific - 2hours at 10 meters...

ut:

 

[MissAmberDiva]

Usually my dives are between 45 min to an hour. I don't think I have ever did a dive that lasted more than an hour.

 

[Zept]

FLL Diver once bubbled...
There's a loaded question. It's like when non-divers who ask how long we can stay underwater for and I have to answer - it depends.

It wasn't intended to be a loaded question, just a curious one. As you say, the answer depends on a whole bunch of things... even if you assume everyone is doing single tank dives with AL80s, some people will be doing deepish square profiles (on wrecks, for example) while others will be doing shallower multilevel dives (on reefs, perhaps) and getting longer bottom times. And then there are people like Pipedope who do all sorts of dives, depending on what is required. There's no right answer, I just wondered what people were choosing to do.

Zept