Dive Logs

[FW]

Sludge: your supposed "cynical" explanation is not cynical AT ALL! I think you are dead-on correct in your analysis. In fact, I am probably guilty of the method of counting to a degree, as well. I would not say by a ludicrous multitude of 3 or 10, though, as I seriously spent some major parts of 4 1/2 years underwater/ground in North Florida. The addiction nearly bankrupted me, to which my credit score and future wife will attest. I only dive 20-30 times a year NOW, because of other obligations and health (lack of) reasons. Back when I started, though, I had no other reason for living and my estimate is still probably pretty close. It may have to be revised down to about 830-870 to be closer to what my old dive buddy (he actually kept a very rudimentary logbook of our dives) has. Very lucid thoughts you put out there, though.

Now that is more like it

[diveconjeff]

Here's the best reason to NOT log your dives: you get a lot more dives that way. ...

"Cool. So you've made a thousand dives a year for the last five years?" Went straight over his head.
..."

I found this pretty interesting when I put the numbers to the test, (total dives / years diving) Maybe my first wife had a point.

Still don't know what it was, but maybe she had one

[Scott]

i prefer quality to quantity. I use to get it from my OW buddies all the time that they had way more dives than me when we dove the same amount of days a month.
then i quicky realized that we would go to the lake/quarry together and they would be done with their second dive while i was still on my first.
they went with the "20 ft for 20 min equals a dive" theory. i tried to explain to them that a one hour dive is better than 3 - twenty minute dives and they didnt get it.

I keep a log for records incase i need to reference anything and i have a seperate log for training dives with students.

Scott

[w ripley]

Scott,

I remember my first cave dives, and thinking that every time I surfaced and went back down that I was in a new dive. So funny to look back. Now most of us are interested in keeping track of the number of hours on a dive rather than the number of dives we make.

Bill

[Sludge]

Okay, I'm going to talk about Ron Bear, even though he's not on this forum to defend himself!

On the five-year anniversary of his OW certification he had 507 dives, and 509 hours of bottom time.

[Neptuno]

I always forget to log, mostly Dave reminds me to do it, but one time a few years ago talking to Jim Wyatt he was telling me he has done a dive with sheck I believe? I don't remember, but I figured that is something very cool to know who your buddies has been in your diving life, and then, dave logs some important data about the dives, like access, time, extra info that is always useful for us or somebody else, if you go back to the same place several years after, you just read what is cool to go look for... I'm also noting how much line I add in the dives when I do, if cave worth going back or not, etc.
I always logged the profiles, deco times, etc. when I did logged, but I think it could be really cool when I get older to check out where, when and with who I did my dives, who knows, maybe I could contact some of the old buddies to have a beer with again

[RN]

i prefer quality to quantity. I use to get it from my OW buddies all the time that they had way more dives than me when we dove the same amount of days a month.
then i quicky realized that we would go to the lake/quarry together and they would be done with their second dive while i was still on my first.
they went with the "20 ft for 20 min equals a dive" theory. i tried to explain to them that a one hour dive is better than 3 - twenty minute dives and they didnt get it.

I keep a log for records incase i need to reference anything and i have a seperate log for training dives with students.

Scott

I never had the mindset of the 20 for 20 theory. A swim to Olsen and back is one dive. But there are a lot of people out there that will do the shorter dives to get the larger numbers. I've always had more hours in caves than cave dives, but my teaching keeps my logged hours less than my dive numbers. However, the difference gets smaller all the time. It won't be long before my overall hours are more than my number of dives.

[Dark Eternal]

If you take the first half of my log book, I have far more dives than hours, if you take the second half its the other way around. I figure this is the same with most divers who go beyond the recreational limits, as they progress in their diving the amount of time underwater will increase but the number of dives may decrease. It used to be pretty common for me to make 5+ dives in a day. A full day for me now is usually 3 dives and that will continue to drop as the dives become more complex I am sure.

[w ripley]

...I figure this is the same with most divers who go beyond the recreational limits, as they progress in their diving the amount of time underwater will increase but the number of dives may decrease...

I agree, but you also have to have water temps that allow you to stay down longer, like you find in FL or Mexican caves vs. colder lakes or oceans like we have up north. I think you see more heated vests being sold because many now have the ability to stay down longer but can't take cold water temps for very long, say for over an hour in 45 degree F water without an outside heat source. They are also nice on a 2 hour deco in a FL cave.

Once our FL cave dives started pushing 4 hours my buddy and I had to go to a rebreather. Now we typically get in only one cave dive a day, staying down 4 to 6+ hours per dive, including deco. My last 5 dives in Ginnie in April totaled 24 hours.

Going back to this tread's theme, there are a lot of reasons to make log notes on the multiple-hour dives. For one reason you're probably going to places you haven't been before, and for another you have to be seeing things that you want to explore futher the next time you go there.

[Dark Eternal]

Good point, I had not thought of temps at all, I so far have done a vast majority of my diving in Texas and FL where it is not an issue.