What constitutes a loggable "dive"

[maniago]

Thanks to everyone who answered my questions about why to log. I started this one so as not to have this question get lost if someone new does a search (of which I came up with zippy).

So now I'm logging and the question is "what is a dive"? I mean, 2mins just below the surface isn't a dive, but 2 minutes at 100' (if you could do that) sure ought to be a dive. My computer gets confused and calls a dive anything below 5' no matter how long. But for a certification, like showing 50 dives for DMC if I started that, would clearly not be 50 x 5'.

So what is it folks? What constitutes an acceptable loggable dive for purposes of continuing education where you have to show a dive log?

Thanks!

(just noticed I can't spell for $h*t, oops)

 

[tstormdiver]

For standards of most courses, it must be a minimum of 15- 20 ft for a minimum of 15 minutes. However, your log book is your own. Log what you believe is a dive. The secret is to get the most out of every dive you do. Learn something new & improve with every dive.

 

[maniago]

Ok, no bites on this one. So how about something like this: divetimeXdivedepth >=100 is a valid dive. Any comments?

---------- Post Merged at 09:13 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 09:09 PM ----------

For standards of most courses, it must be a minimum of 15- 20 ft for a minimum of 15 minutes. However, your log book is your own. Log what you believe is a dive.

My thoughts here would be that the dives in OW are less than this, but are certification dives. Seems like a oxymoron.

 

[gypsyjim]

Even a dive I have to abort is log-gable, because I wish to keep a record I can review of lessons learned, problems encountered, problems solved, and issue i may wish to avoid on future dives.

As suggested above, this is your log. Use it as if best fits you.

Honestly, I did not log a single dive for a long time, and now I wish I had, but once I started in the mid 90's, I decided to log every single dive, so I could later go back and read and learn.

 

[Paulmal]

Log what Evers to feel is a dive for you. I have logged a couple aborted dives. Because there was lessons learned. It the have not logged a dive that we went down to depth, surfaced, then went back to depth because we had to fix a small problem we noticed before the dive. But I did log the dive that followed the bounce.

 

[tstormdiver]

My thoughts here would be that the dives in OW are less than this, but are certification dives. Seems like a oxymoron.

One of my best & favorite dives I've logged was about 90 min. in less than 6ft of water in Ginnie Springs run, chasing freshwater flounders. I never had so much fun! (I'm easily amused ).

 

[decompression]

How about 15-15........ Minimum 15' for 15 minutes.....not a pool.

 

[TMHeimer]

Your depth, time, etc. only matters if you need a certain number of logged dives in order to begin a course (such as divemaster, instructor, some others, etc.). In that case, ask either your agency or shop, or both to see what counts. Personally I log pretty much everything except pool dives, but that's all up to you.

 

[gypsyjim]

Twice recently I logged dives that were under 10 minutes long because both were aborted to resolve some serious issues. I wished to record these events, and both resulted in much better dives 20 minutes to an hour later, once the issues had been addressed and resolved.

As I get older, and as I am making continual changes in my gear and techniques, I wish to keep better records, so I can go back later and retrieve that info if I wish.

I dived from 1970, until the mid 90's with no such records, and now I can never go back and review things like weighting, entries, marine life, buddies, etc from almost any of those dives.

I have spoken with Instructors who log even pool dives in classes for similar reasons, and so they have a record of every student they have worked with, and what they observed in that session .

My log book is for myself, and need satisfy no one else

 

[BabyDuck]

i've mostly heard the rule of thumb that dives need to be at least 20ft for at least 20min, but you can log whatever you want to.