Your Logbook - Remembering your first scuba dive

Online   Dec 29, 2017

Do you keep a scuba diving logbook? I do, and I think it's a great idea for you to do the same.

It is an incredibly cold day here in New England. This morning it was about 5 degrees F NOT C with a brutal wind chill. We are still a couple of weeks away from heading to Grand Cayman and I need some way to warm up or at least think about some warm water diving.

So, I started to think about my very first real dive (after finishing my scuba diving certified). I knew it was in Key Largo and the old disposable underwater film prints have long been lost. But hey, I could pull out my dive logbook and it would help me relive that dive. It was the wreck of the City of Washington on Elbow Reef. How cool is that - to get your first dive on a real wreck? A wreck of a ship that once docked in Havana Harbor near the USS Maine when it exploded.

My Scuba Logbook

The logbook told me all about the dive - the water temperature, my exposure protection, weight, bottom time, depth and what we experienced on the dive and much more. By the way, the water temperature on Elbow Reef in Key Largo that day was 86 degrees.

Keeping your logbook up-to-date is a perfect way to document your dive experience with a lot of great and relevant information to make your future diving more fun and perhaps to remind you of some fantastic warm weather destinations or other interesting dives when it is too cold to scuba in Connecticut or when you just want to remember why we dive.

Photo courtesy NOAA - In 25 feet of water east of Key Largo, the remains of the City of Washington lie on Elbow Reef. On July 10, 1917, while being towed by a tug, the City of Washington ran aground on and was a total loss within minutes.