Number of Dives Logged

[texdiveguy]

I am not real big on dive count either being much of a guild or indicator of a divers abilities or skills.

I know divers that are under the 200 count in 3-4 years of sport diving that are really good! I also know a good number of recreational instructors that list thousands of dives to their career...the great bulk are 20-25 minute dives to 20-30ft. with students and many are at the same local location year after year. IMO alot more to this than dive count....at best it is a rough indicator of in water time thats all. But like everything else there are exceptional exceptions to my observation.

[jwdizney]

Originally Posted by cummings66

Sometimes the number of dives doesn't mean much no matter what the number is. If you've got 100 dives and they're all 6 feet deep about all I can assume is you've probably got good buoyancy.

We can log dives to 6 feet?... I guess I need to change my profile!..

[hoobascooba]

Originally Posted by CompuDude

So how many OOA divers have you dealt with in your diving career? How many new diver questions have you fielded? How many dry dives in 45 degree water that exceeded recreational limits? How many beach entries through 5' surf? How many times have you had to execute a search pattern to find a missing buddy in water with 3' vis... in the clear places? I'm not asking if all of these things were done flawlessly... but were they done at all? And can you therefore actually know what they're like?

Experience brings all kinds of extras to the table that might not be immediately apparent. Inexperience brings all kinds of "holes in knowledge" that also might not be immediately apparent... to the new diver, OR the casual observer.

Some people are naturals... and if they are (and you are), kudos. But that doesn't mean we should give your advice the same weight as an instructor with 15,000 dives who has been teaching diving since 1965. It doesn't mean we should ignore, you either... and I wouldn't. But you have to realize that there IS at least some correlation here.

I agree totally to the correlation between number of dives and 'experience'. But again, it's not always the best rule of thumb (someone with 100+ dives could give bad advice [too confident, perhaps?] it happens, I've seen it). And I never said that my advice should have any more or any less, or even equal weight to the next diver that has way more "logged" dives than me.

As to your ?'s however, no, I've never had to deal with OOA divers in my diving hobby. I have answered many good questions of new divers, based on my own experience though. I will never repeat hearsay. I don't dry dive. But I have dove wet in 52 deg water, and could give real good advice in that regard. I've only made 1 beach dive entry in 3' surf, and that was not fun, I can tell you that much. As for the rest of your ?'s (which I realize they were hypothetical anyway), I'm getting finished with my AOW this weekend... so I'll get back to you after I've got a few more hundred dives under my belt... say 5 years???

Here's some good advice for relatively *new* divers [less than ~20 dives]: Don't answer ANY questions, unless you can PROVE your direct experience. For example, if you've only owned 1 BCD, you can't compare it to any other. Am I right, or what?

i'll shutup now.

[hoobascooba]

I think this is the best suggestion yet. Take out NUMBER of dives altogether. It's misleading anyway.

Originally Posted by rawalker

Not that it would help with verification or even suggest knowledge or experience but I'd like to see a dive frequency number based on the prior year or maybe an average of 3 years with notes of divers active for less than 3 years.

Once a year
Twice a Year
Quarterly
Every other month
Monthly
More often than monthly

This may serve to show those that are actively practicing and learning.

A diver who is active and expanding their abilities may have more to offer than a diver with 200 logged dives over 10 years and the first 150 dives logged over 9 years ago.

[hoobascooba]

Originally Posted by CompuDude

If someone is spouting off like an expert, and yet saying things are blatantly wrong, and I look and see they have listed 0-24 dives, you can be sure I'm going to give some weight to the number of dives posted when I correct them.

They either need to learn a little more before posting, or they're liars. Hopefully the former. Anyone who purposely lies deserves any grief they get.

I won't mention any names... but seriously, I know of at least ONE diver that has listed more than 50 dives, talks like he's been diving for years, seems real intelligent too... but I'll tell you this: I've seen him post some erroneous information, not once, but a couple times. And not only on just THIS forum, but also on a couple others that I know of.

I'm pretty sure he won't be the first one I take advice from.

[mm2002]

What about people like me who have hundreds of dives, but show only a few on the forum profile so newbies won't be intimidated? Maybe we ask "newbie" questions under contract by ST just to help them sell more gear?


































Or maybe I'm just full of S**T!

[DOWNDEEP73]

Originally Posted by mm2002

Or maybe I'm just full of S**T!

Maybe?

[Geoff_T]

Originally Posted by mm2002

What about people like me who have hundreds of dives, but show only a few on the forum profile so newbies won't be intimidated? Maybe we ask "newbie" questions under contract by ST just to help them sell more gear?

Or maybe I'm just full of S**T!

Hey for what its worth I probialy only have like 30 or so logged. That is logged there was a point when I was diving probialy weekly for 2 years but did not log most dives as they were in the quarry and shallow. Or other locations that in my mind at the time just did not warrent me takeing the time to bother with logging them.

[Geoff_T]

Originally Posted by rawalker

Not that it would help with verification or even suggest knowledge or experience but I'd like to see a dive frequency number based on the prior year or maybe an average of 3 years with notes of divers active for less than 3 years.

Once a year
Twice a Year
Quarterly
Every other month
Monthly
More often than monthly

This may serve to show those that are actively practicing and learning.

A diver who is active and expanding their abilities may have more to offer than a diver with 200 logged dives over 10 years and the first 150 dives logged over 9 years ago.

I agree and I am one of those people you mentioned who has the majority of his dives loged 4 or more years ago. Though hopefully not for long.

[mm2002]

Actually, since it seems most folks agree that it takes 50 dives or so to be a decent diver, I think the dives logged should be 1-50, 50-100, over 100. The secondary could be the frequency of diving. Like was said, a diver who's been diving for 40 years with 100 dives may not be an extremely experienced person. On the other hand, someone who's been diving for 2 years and has 100 dives definitely has a little experience under their belt.