Judging a diver's experience: logging number of dives and hours of dive time

[Marie13]

Diver's experience should be assessed by the number of dives, the hours underwater, the sites dived, the different scenarios seen, the certification level, and so on.
I met a dive instructor some years ago that had only dived in fresh water in a quarry complex (several quarries in cascade). He had no sea water experience. How could he get that instructor cert ?

You think freshwater experience is useless? Divers wreck diving on the North American Great Lakes are probably more skilled than the average tropical recreational diver. Cold water, drysuits, lower viz, etc.

 

[BoltSnap]

He had no sea water experience. How could he get that instructor cert ?

Diving in the great lakes is a huge experience, compare that with diving in tropical sea water where the wave height doesn't go over few inches. YOu think that somebody who has a 1000 dives in Bonaire only can handle diving in the great lakes?

 

[Raphus]

I log both, but it doesn't matter.
I now divers with around a hundred dives.
Already tech1 qualified and outdiving most people with much more dives.
And I see divers with 1000, 2000 or even more dives, which dive as bad as some with 50 dives.

Dive number, dive years and underwatertime is only a rough estimation of experience. And I got surprised many times.. In both directions! But more on the negative site

So I stopped asking for dive numbers. When someone put on the gear, or at maximum 30 seconds after entering the water, I can see how good they dive.

 

[Steelyeyes]

You left out the option for just sewing all the patches on your jacket.

My wife and I got instabuddied with a guy on Looe Key reef. The dive wasn't very deep and due to recent weather the visibility was pretty crappy. First thing the guy did was disappear. We did the one minute and then surface. Couldn't see him. Divemaster on boat spotted his lone bubbles and did the diver recall banging on the ladder trick. We regrouped. He paid a lot better attention after that. When we were leaving the dive shop later on I noticed he had all kinds of patches and stickers. I was not impressed.

 

[Bowers]

I look at number of dives, hours, and variety of experience for new students signing up for my classes. But as most could tell you, ive had some with 20 years experience and lots of various dive locations who are lacking fundamental skills such as buoyancy control while i others only have a couple years and 50 dives who are solid divers because they had the right foundation.
Speaking of diversity/experience for instructors, i know a guy who went from inexperienced ow diver to instructor in one month at a lake that did a zero to hero instructor class on site. That has always concerned me..

 

[emoreira]

You think freshwater experience is useless? Divers wreck diving on the North American Great Lakes are probably more skilled than the average tropical recreational diver. Cold water, drysuits, lower viz, etc.

No, sorry for the misunderstanding. You are right. Great lakes are fresh water lakes, and they are like interior seas. I wanted to point out those diving in quarries.

 

[johndiver999]

I don't log dives or time. If an attempt is being made to judge a diver's experience/competence it seems important to focus on the particular activity and environment. If the diver has little experience in dealing with rough conditions on a small boat, or cold water or strong currents or surge or intimidating marine life or significant depth - then certification or number of dives (or bubble blowing time somewhere else) might not serve as a useful metric should any of those particular types of challenges become relevant.

Time diving "round here" or doing the "stuff we are planning on doing", are often most relevant - if one is trying to find a decent buddy for a particular dive.

A GREAT quarry diver who has perfect trim in his dry suit and who LOVES cold, dirty, dark water, might not be such a good buddy if they are puking 10 minutes into a 45 minute boat ride.

 

[Vicko]

Dive number or dive time are just some of the factors.
Over 5 years i had around a thousand dives on the same touristy wreck, easy dive, no current, max depth 30 meters, 20+ meter visibility. Does that make me experienced if you drop me on a river drift dive?

 

[Wibble]

I don't have a log book. Never have.

Some people get a great deal of pleasure waxing lyrical about their diving experiences. Good for them!

I only use the Shearwater Cloud applications (iPhone, iPad, Mac -- think they're on Anderoid & Pee Sea). This is incredibly convenient as the dive computer dumps the dive profile, gasses, temperatures, deco ceilings, etc. into the application. I just add the site and a few words about the dive. That's then available across my devices and works with all my Shearwater computers (I've a Perdix standalone for OC and the Petrel & Nerd2 for the rebreather).

I used to use a Suunto D9tx, but the Suunto applications have gone out of support - and I don't ever use the thing (must get around to selling it!). So my first ~300 dives aren't logged any more.

Edit: just fired up Suunto DM5 and it asked to update. Did update it and it seems to work OK.

 

[Searcaigh]

I only use the Shearwater Cloud applications

Some of us started diving before dive computers were available never mind the internet and the clouds were in the sky.