What is a legit logged dive?

[Falco]

I log any dive in a body of open water, regardless of depth or time.

 

[divingjd]

To count as an open-water training dive, SSI says the dive has to be at least 15 ft. and at least 15 minutes. It makes sense to have some kind of rule for training, otherwise somebody could do a "tea-bag" dive (just a quick dip) and have it count. In planning repetitive dives, any dive that starts less than ten minutes after the previous dive is considered the same dive. Using that rule, when I teach open waters and bounce up and down a lot doing air-sharing ascents and emergency ascents with students, it's all one dive. Generally, I wouldn't count a dive that was aborted before the descent was completed, such as a few where I have had to bail out because a buddy could not equalize, even though one of those involved sucking down a fair amount of air in heavy chop.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I think I'm just restating what others have said, but the answer is that what to log depends on what the purpose of your logbook is to YOU. If you're a recreational diver, and not a Navy SEAL or a person whose job is to scrub boat hulls or whatever, then you're going to log dives for reasons that are important to YOU, not to an employer or someone else.

Since no matter what criteria you decide to impose on yourself you'll quickly have more than enough dives to satisfy wary divemasters who are hesitant to allow inexperienced divers to do challenging dives, how you continue to fill out the logbook for years after that depends totally on your own objectives. I, like many people, use my logbook primarily to help recall marine life and dive conditions so I can give a "review" of the site if asked. I suppose that having one's last few dive profiles written down can also be useful to medical personnel if you have a problem. In view of my log book's purpose to me, I log a dive if there is something worth writing down about it that I want to remember or that might be of use to others.

And yes, I'm looking forward as a personal point of pride to my 100th logged dive, but I don't fret over whether to log a dive or not, as at this point my log book isn't intended for anything but my personal enjoyment.

 

[BrianV]

I don't think it should be based on minutes. I've done several few minute dives that have ended in gear failure of my buddies or other reasons to call a dive. I logged one once so I would remember my stupidity. I thought I could pull of a 15-20 minute dive starting with 1300 PSI, and in addition I hadn't applied additional defog. When I got under water, after minute four my goggles started to fog (PS - this was a night dive and was only my second night dive). The combination of fogged vision, horrible lake visibility, unfamiliarity with night diving, cold temperatures, and an SPG now at 900 PSI I started getting real nervous and aborted the dive. I logged that dive and documented the multiple mistakes I made in my pre-dive; I thought it was worth documenting.

 

[BiggDawg]

As others say it all depends on the diver. PADI teaches dive today meaning even the pool dives though in a pool or confined space is still a logged dive. (learned that in my dive master to be book )

I had an instructor 15 years ago tell me that "any time you are wet and breathing compressed gas, it is a dive," so I logged everything.

Now, many dives later, and like a number of other divers, I stopped actually logging every dive, even to depth for a long time.

Log it if it happened. Don't if you don't need it. It's your log, what information is what you need to keep? THAT's what you should log.

BD

 

[1RUSTYRIG]

I can't remember the last time I wrote in a log book. If I didn't have a computer that transferred everything to my PC I still wouldn't do it.

 

[scubarealtor]

My Disney DiveQuest dive was one of the most fun and definately most expensive ($140 for a single tank dive) dives I have done. I definately logged it and still wear the tshirt.

 

[Scuba Jerm]

This is an interesting discussion... one I've thought about recently. We have a couple guys in our small dive club that go retrieve golf balls in water that is usually 12 feet or less..... I've never thought to log those dives because of what we are doing but come to think of it, I've searched the bottom of a water hazard at 10 feet for 40 minutes or so, in 0 vis water and thought to myself.... "as silly of a dive experiance this is.... this is great 0 vis experiance, that has made be extremely comfortable navigating hardly being able to see the compass or my remaining air and comfortable with my gear. I guess I might log a few of those now

 

[diverdown247]

I'm noticing a lot of the 20min @ 20ft issue coming up. Well, according to some search and rescue/recovery teams, a dive is anything that exceeds 15 minutes at depths less than 15 feet or any dive that exceeds 1 atmosphere of pressure for any length of time. That info is subject to variance depending on the team, location, altitude, and water type/conditions.

When I had my first official search/recovery dive, it was nearly an emergency splash to prevent the sailboat from going to the bottom of the lake. Granted I was only on the bottom for 3-5 minutes, but that was at 35 ft. The dive needed to be logged not only to demonstrate the experience gained on the dive, but to log the action performed and methods used. This helps emergency services should a dive accident take place. They can look at your last logged dive (provided you updated it immediately following each dive) and see if your previous dive conditions or surface interval may be a factor.

I'm a firm believer that a dive log (kept with you on diving excursions and filled out religiously) can save your life. Medical information (such as allergic reactions to certain meds) inside the log for yourself and emergency contact info is important in there as well.

 

[divedeepnj]

It's your log book, log whatever you want. If you go in a pond for 10 mins to get your weight/bouyancy just right you should log it so you can write down what weights/gear combo you used. If you just go under the water to pad the log, that's just sad. Yes, I've seen guys who do that.