Dive Logs

[Unregistered User]

I'll preface this post with my abbreviated diving resume so, hopefully, the answers/comments will be taken seriously. roughly 200 o/w and 1000 or so cave dives, max depth 302', max penetration ~6100'
I have never kept a dive log (even when I began o/w diving back in '88 and was wondering why (besides the obvious technical data recording for future reference) some people choose to do so: Abe Davis award and access to certain caves I understand completely, but after that requisite number why continue? I'm curious to know if it's one of a few possible reasons I have listed. Please comment if none of the choices fits your reasoning.

I'm a moron for not including choice #11: I do not keep dive logs. I will add that to another poll, I guess...
Unless someone else out there knows how to edit a poll...

[aainslie]

For the record... I don't. I did up to my Abe Davis and then stopped.

[diveconjeff]

I logged 2987 OW dives. Did it like clock work. Soon as I got my FC, I was as excited as the 18 year old kid that got his OW card back in the 70's. It all became fresh again, I stopped logging the OW water dives and restarted my dive log at 1. The group I dive with are all AD guys, and they all still log their dives as well.

I guess I am keeping it for the following reasons.

1. I have my eye on an award because that can open other avenues for cave
diving.

2. As I dive new systems it helps me to reinforce the dive from a navigational perspective in my not quite shiny new memory unit. I have used this to plan future or follow-on dives as well.

3. I like to note locations of items that I may have photographic interest in, as this can help sorting and labeling any photos (assuming there are some worth labeling)

[FW]

GatorCaver, you left out some important choices, like between "other" and " I am too lazy to log dives" you should have "all of the above", "most of the above" and "several of the above".

You say you started diving in 1988, and have around 1200 total dives. That would be an average of around 55 dives per year. That would be about right, except in another post you state you just started back diving. "Just got back into cave diving and ..."

How many years did you dive OW, and how many years did you dive caves?

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I log dives as a refference I can go back to in order to get a handle on what to expect next time. It also gives me an opportunity to figure out how a site will be under certain conditions.

I log ASAP. Found it annoying after the first dozen OW dives, but not I actually enjoy it.

[MORGAN]

I log dives as a reference I can go back to...

Yup, me too.

Mike

[Nix]

I generally don't log dives anymore. I did for a long time then realized that the vast majority of the logs really had no meaning to me other than data for statistics I had no real use for. Now I will still dust off the log and make an entry if something truly spectacular happens, but that's about it.

[Superlyte27]

I only log cave dives and commercial dives.

I log commercial dives because a company might ask to see my log book. It's never happened yet, but I guess it could happen.

I log cave dives because I'm reaching for awards. I have about 300'ish cave dives but probably only 70'ish are in the log books. I have bunches of open water dives and thousands of hours underwater in a commercial atmosphere.

[giles45shop]

I chose "other" since I'm another one who uses the log as a reference document. I'm relatively new ( ~ 50 cave dives, Basic, still working towards Full Cert) so the log is a great help in dive planning (depths, times, distances, RMV, etc.).

It's also a great help in my relatively rare OW dives in the saltly water, since the water temps and exposure protection/gear configuration are not essentially constant like NFL caves.

John

[Sludge]

BTW, this poll will allow you to have multiple answers. I checked four of them.