Do you log your dives?

[lottie]

Still being a noob at diving (44 dives over 1 year), i still log my dives and coming close to finishing up my first log book.

Even now, looking back at the dives i've done and what i've written it's nice to see what I saw, how i was diving, whether it was a good dive or not due to whatever reason. Plus it'd be nice to have something for my kids to look at in the future.

So, do you still log your dives?

[shinek]

I try to log them all these days, particularly when on holiday somewhere. We'll take a few minutes in the bar at the end of the dive day to jot down a few notes in the log book, depth, time and all that stuff but also what we saw and anything out of the ordinary.

We do a lot of training dives in lakes around here and I have to confess to not being as dilligent as I should be on those. Tend to just download the computer periodically with lots of "O/W training dive" and little else written.

My recommendation is to log them all, I didn't log dives for a number of years and regret that. I don't have a good enough memory to recall them all so it would be nice to have those little reminders. Also, some dive operators like to see a log book, just to show your level of experience and how recently you're been diving. That way they can judge the appropriate dive site and put people of similar skill levels together in the same group.

I did find one of my early BSAC log books (1978/79 era) and it makes for some entertaining reading. Looking back on it now, I'm not sure how I survived.

Anyway, keep logging them, it only takes a few minutes and you will be glad you did in years to come.

[h2odragon1]

Thanks for the reminder!
I usually download the dives first then record them in my logbook
Going there now

[lars2923]

That is what I usually say to myself, I'll do it later.
I won't forget these 3 dives. 30 dives later I still haven't recorded
any of them..

I wear a computer, I'll just download the data.. OK.. When do
I do that? I won't forget those 50 dives... 100 dives later, I still
haven't downloaded the dives off of the computer...

I need a logbook Beotch with me... lol

[rubber chicken]

My original logbook was stolen from car last year, so I knocked up a quick spreadsheet which just records the date, location, depth, time, gas mix and water temp.
If I'm teaching or DMing OW courses, my little rule is : If I get out of the water between dives then it is 2 dives otherwise just one. And, I must confess, I rarely log boat scrubbing dives, even if I've spent an hour plus u/w.

[acelockco]

That is what I usually say to myself, I'll do it later.
I won't forget these 3 dives. 30 dives later I still haven't recorded
any of them..


We are members of the same club. I always find I am trying to log the last 10 days of diving after one good dive that I want to log.

[acelockco]

And, I must confess, I rarely log boat scrubbing dives, even if I've spent an hour plus u/w.

I wouldn't either, unless it was part of my profession as record keeping is important with something like that.

[rubber chicken]

I only do it occasionally at some of the local marinas, usually on a beer money or bottle of scotch basis.:) Quite frequently get asked "As you are down there, could you look for my sunglasses/wallet/keepnet etc that I dropped overboard the other day?" by other boat owners. It amazes me that people who can sail through quite rough weather without a problem, can lose so many things over the side while secured fore and aft to a berthing jetty!

[scuba smurf]

still log my dives, mostly though just for the memories that it brings back when I read through it.

[dalehall]

I actually carry a journal (ie: Spiral notebook) with me on all my vacations, trips, cruises, etc. I write down everything about the trips (funny conversations on the way down, where we ate, where we stayed, things out of the ordinary we saw, things we did and any dive info) When I get home, I usually BLOG the trip and then I also log my dives in my log book with the info in my notebook. Both my log book and my notebook bring back great memories. My dive buddies wouldn't know what to do if they didn't see that notebook in the dry box. But, to answer the original question: Yes, I still log all my dives.

[mempilot]

I guess I'm the only one that doesn't log my dives. At around 1000 dives, I guess I don't see the need to do it. I actually stopped logging them at around 500. My VR3 dive computer store quite a few dives, and so if an operator wanted to see currency, I could scroll through that for them. Many of our more memorable dives get written up in trip reports with photography, so I can always remember them that way. :)

[seasnake]

I still log all mine, the old fashioned way. I did actually make up my own log book sheet to put in my log book so I could record the stuff I wanted. Good for keeping track of info on dive sites too, and tracking things like temperatures at the local spots. A lot of times I'll draw little diagrams of the site so I can find stuff again, or doodle pics of weird critters I saw so I can look them up later.

[Nemo]

When I started diving I used to log all my dives. Then my book got stolen. I remembered about how many dives I had and continued on. Then all my books were lost along with our house in the 2004 tsunami. Except the most recent book used to log what companies I worked for on what dates, which dive sites and the number of divers I took. I used this to make sure I got paid correctly so I made no notes other than the above info. If you have a computer that can download your dives just use this and as mempilot said let the photos be memories. They make better memories than logbook descriptions!
I also put down the dive number in each entry to remember how many dives I have. Clients like to know this so I like to have a fairly accurate record......at least to the closest 25 or so. I think a lot of people keep log books for the first 100 or 200 or so dives then get tired and stop. They just remember about how many dives they have. And that's usually good enough. We only ask to see dive card and number of dives for clients. Other operators may ask to see log books. But I can't see any of them turning away business because you don't have one. As long as you have a card!

[alcina]

I log 'em all...some more, some less.

Almost all of them get some sort of write up in my log book - it might only be location and date but it might be all manner of details from time/depth to the conditions, the creatures I saw, the behaviours I noted, changes from something I observed last time.

Sometimes I'm very good at doing this and other times I leave it and use Lightroom's details and the images to jog my memory before I write it down.

I have quite a few dives so far and can't see that I will change the way I do things much!

[Okeanos]

I stopped logging at 850 dives. Now I just download them from my dive computer onto the PC and print them out. Even then I don't do every dive, I have to log all teaching dives though.

[Quero]

Nah. I don't regularly log dives. On some special dive trips I do, just to remember the names of dive sites, but even then, I usually forget to do it because I never log dives when I'm not away.

[exploremex]

not anymore i stop some years ago....:eek:

[hbh2oguard]

I do but that's partly because I have too to keep certification. Also it's nice to go through old log books and see what dives I've done that I forgot about like my 8th dive out of OW was a solo dive...oh well it didn't take long for me to break the "rules":)