As a historian, which I guess I am, I’m a little obsessed with primary sources. As you may know, history is the study of the past (no shit Sherlock), as far as it can be glimpsed through the written word. That’s why prehistory refers broadly to the period before writing was invented, the realm of archaeology, anthropology, paleontology.

Primary sources are documents that inform you about events or a period first hand, they are direct witnesses, the products of their time and culture. They might be lying witnesses, or have an axe to grind (they usually do), but those can be as important as facts to a historian. The Declaration of Independence is a primary source, the diaries of a medieval nun are a primary source, books or articles about the same documents are not. Unless you want to study how said documents were perceived at a certain point in time, but that’s a different story, you get the point.

That’s why I have a profound fondness for our scuba diving log books, they are witnesses to our adventures and guardians of our memories. I know divers that stopped logging past a certain number of dives. After 100, 250 or 500 dives, they figure what’s the point? To us at Diving & Chillin’ log books are part of our post dive ritual (log books and beers) but also a reminder of what we have done and seen together, how far we’ve come as divers.

Human memory is quite fallible. It’s very easy to forget our beginner’s mistakes or some of the kick ass things we’ve seen.

I flip through my first log book and I relive my earliest dives,  they come back with a surprising amount of details. Trying to figure out my proper weights,  dealing with breathing too heavy, some dives where I did not know enough to be scared, things like that. It’s humbling and that’s a good thing. It’s a reminder I was a noob once and I should extend to others the patience that was extended to me.

I find forgotten highlights as well, including two manta rays checking us out during a safety stop or a mola-mola in the Mediterranean. There’s also my first “deep” wreck (about 75 feet), a ship that was sunk after hitting a mine in WW2, and  a deep cave dive (93 feet) with a silty bottom… Not sure I would take people in there today. I still remember the DM saying how they don’t really dive there anymore, ever since the accidents…

For a while we switched from log books to loose leaves in a binder, but it was not as practical or elegant a solution IMHO. It’s like keeping your photographs in a shoe box versus an album (boy I’m old).

Logs are for diving specifics like correlating your air consumption to dive depth,  but they’re also for feathers from carnival costumes or strangely retro cigarette wrappers.

Sidebar, a log book is such a great promotional tool for a dive shop, This one is from Mexico.

The artwork on the logo was courtesy of a DM’s son in Belize. Another little piece of memory. Granted it’s not Proust’s madeleines, but you don’t need to look far for the small things that make life funny or interesting. And yes, log books are also a great place to store the beer labels of your travels, which as far a cheap souvenirs go are hard to beat.

Now that we are printing our own books we can also choose what’s in them, what we want to remember. Did you perhaps dive naked? Check the right box please. Did you do the crab dance?

Or maybe you would fancy a dad joke?

Log books can be technical, historical, fun, poetic, pretty much anything you want. They’ll remind you how much weight you need if you dive in your full 7mm and not your 3mm shorty. Or the last time you went on a night dive and maybe some message you left to yourself about that (bring a back-up light!). Wondering where exactly you saw the pac-man like juvenile puffer? Logbook! How deep was your last dive? Log book!

Plus the stamps can be really cool.

I’m writing this as very heavy snowflakes crowd the skies outside my window, and it’s easy to get nostalgic for moments such as these.

At least I can flip through my log books until the next trip.

Sigh….