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Dive Logging
Every dive you record lives in the Dives tab. This page covers logging a dive by hand in the redesigned dive form, every field you can fill in, and how to find, sort, filter, and bulk-edit dives once you have a few in your log.
Note
Where to find it: Open the Dives tab, then tap the Log Dive button (the + floating button) and choose Log Dive Manually. To edit an existing dive, open it from the list and tap Edit. To pull dives off a dive computer instead, choose Import from Computer — see Dive Computers.
You do not have to fill in everything. A useful dive entry takes only a few seconds:
- In the Dives tab, tap Log Dive → Log Dive Manually.
- In the first section, The Dive, type your Max Depth and Bottom Time into the two big number boxes.
- Tap Entry to set the date and time you went in.
- Tap Site and pick (or create) the dive site.
- Tap Save.
Everything else — gas, conditions, buddies, photos — is optional and can be added now or later. The dive number is filled in for you automatically.
The form is split into collapsible sections, each leading with a strip of large "hero" numbers for the values you care about most. This is the same layout used across Submersion's editors, so once you learn one form you know them all.
The sections, in order, are:
| Section | What it holds |
|---|---|
| The Dive | Depth, time, dive number, entry/exit, dive site, and the profile. Always open. |
| Gas & Gear | Dive mode, tanks and gas mixes, equipment, and weights. |
| Conditions | Water and air temperature, visibility, current, water type, weather. |
| Trip | The trip and dive center for this dive. |
| Buddies | The people you dived with and their roles. |
| Experience | Star rating, marine-life sightings, notes, and tags. |
| Training Course | Links the dive to a course. Hidden until added. |
| Custom Fields | Your own named fields. Hidden until added. |
Each section behaves the same way:
- Open sections show every field, with a chevron to collapse them.
-
Collapsed sections that contain data show a one-line summary (for example,
Salt Water · 24°C · Good), so you can see what is inside at a glance. - Collapsed and empty sections show a faint invitation such as "Add conditions - water, visibility, weather" — tap it to open and fill in.
- A section with an invalid value gets a coloured edge and an issue count, and re-opens automatically if you try to save.
When you start a new manual dive, The Dive and Gas & Gear open first. For a dive you downloaded or imported, only The Dive opens, because the computer has already filled in most of the rest.
Tip
The Training Course and Custom Fields sections are tucked behind an + Add row at the bottom of the form until you need them. Tap + Add to reveal either one.
This section is always open and owns the core facts of the dive.
Three large boxes sit at the top:
| Box | Unit | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Max Depth | m / ft | The deepest point of the dive. |
| Bottom Time | min | Time spent at depth, not counting your descent and ascent. |
| Avg Depth | m / ft | Your average depth over the whole dive. |
Tap any box to type a value directly — there is no separate pop-up editor.
Note
Bottom Time vs. Runtime. Submersion treats these as two different things. Bottom Time is your time at depth (it excludes the swim down and back up). Runtime is the total time from entry to exit, found in the rows below. SAC — your Surface Air Consumption rate — is calculated from runtime, so a dive's gas-use figures are most accurate when both your gas pressures and your entry/exit times (or runtime) are filled in.
Below the hero numbers:
| Row | Notes |
|---|---|
| Dive # | The dive's sequential number. Filled in automatically (see below); editable. |
| Entry | The date and time you entered the water. Tap to pick. |
| Exit | The date and time you left the water. Optional; if set, it can drive Runtime. |
| Surface interval | Time on the surface since your previous dive. Shown automatically when editing, calculated from the dive before this one. |
| Runtime | Total dive time, entry to exit, in minutes. |
| Site | The dive site. Tap to pick an existing site or create a new one. |
When you create a new dive, Submersion suggests the next dive number for you, based on the highest number already in your log. You can overwrite it, or clear it to have a number assigned on save. When you import a batch of dives from a computer, they are numbered in date order, so dives logged out of sequence still come out numbered correctly.
Tapping Site opens a picker where you can search your saved sites or create a new one. When you start a new dive, Submersion reads your device's location in the background and floats the nearest sites to the top of the picker ("Nearby sites first"). If a saved site has coordinates, its location is shown under the row.
If the dive already has photos with GPS tags, Submersion can offer to create a site from that location, or add the coordinates to the site you picked. See Marine Life & Photos for photo handling.
The bottom of this section shows the dive profile — the depth-over-time graph. If the dive came from a computer it already has a profile and shows the number of recorded points, with an Edit Profile button. A dive logged by hand has no profile, but you can tap Draw Profile to sketch one. If Submersion spots suspicious depth spikes, it surfaces a "potential outlier" chip that jumps straight into cleanup. Profiles, decompression data, and tissue loading are covered in depth on Dive Profiles & Deco.
Tip
When a dive has a profile, the depth and time boxes show a small suggestion with the value calculated from the profile. Tap it to copy that value into the field — handy if you typed a rough number and later attached the real data.
At the top, a three-way selector sets the dive mode, which changes how Submersion calculates oxygen exposure and gas use:
| Mode | Full name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| OC | Open Circuit | Standard scuba — you breathe from a tank and exhale into the water. |
| CCR | Closed Circuit Rebreather | The loop recycles your gas and holds a target oxygen pressure (setpoint). |
| SCR | Semi-Closed Rebreather | A partial loop that meters fresh gas in at a fixed rate. |
Choosing CCR or SCR reveals a dedicated settings panel (see Technical and rebreather diving below).
Each dive starts with one tank. Every tank rests as a compact card showing its Pressure (start → end), Mix, and Volume, with its number and role underneath. Tap Edit on a card to expand the full editor in place, and Done to collapse it. Tap + Add Tank to add another cylinder; remove an extra tank with the trash icon (the last tank cannot be removed).
The expanded tank editor holds:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Tank Preset | Pick a standard cylinder (for example AL80, HP100) to fill in volume, working pressure, and material at once. Your own saved presets appear first, marked with a star. |
| Role | What the cylinder is for (see roles below). |
| Volume | Cylinder size. In metric this is water volume in litres (L); in imperial it is gas capacity in cubic feet (cuft). |
| Material | Aluminum, Steel, or Carbon Fiber. Optional. |
| Working P | The cylinder's rated working pressure. |
| Gas Mix | Oxygen (O2) and helium (He) percentages; nitrogen (N2) is shown automatically as the remainder. Tap a chip for a common mix, or type the numbers. |
| MND | For trimix only: type a target Maximum Narcotic Depth and Submersion back-calculates the helium needed. |
| Start Pressure / End Pressure | Your cylinder pressure at the start and end of the dive. These drive your SAC and gas-used figures. |
The tank's gas name is derived from the mix you enter: 21% oxygen reads as Air,
anything above that as EAN (enriched-air nitrox, e.g. EAN32), any helium
content as Tx (trimix, e.g. Tx 18/45), and pure oxygen as O2. Below the
gas mix, Submersion shows the MOD (Maximum Operating Depth, at a
partial pressure of oxygen of 1.4) and MND for the mix.
Tank roles:
| Role | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Back Gas | Your main cylinder(s). |
| Stage | A cylinder carried for part of the dive. |
| Deco | A decompression gas. |
| Bailout | An emergency open-circuit cylinder on a rebreather dive. |
| Sidemount Left / Sidemount Right | Cylinders worn at your sides. |
| Pony Bottle | A small independent reserve. |
| Diluent | The diluent cylinder on a closed-circuit rebreather. |
| O2 Supply | The oxygen cylinder on a closed-circuit rebreather. |
Tip
You can set a default tank preset in Settings so every new tank (and, optionally, imported dives missing tank data) starts from your usual cylinder instead of a generic one.
Tap + Add to attach individual gear from your Equipment locker, or Use Set to add a saved kit in one go. Once items are listed you can save the current selection as a new set with Save as Set, or Clear All.
Record how much weight you wore. Each entry has an amount and a type — Weight Belt, Integrated Weights, Ankle Weights, Trim Weights, Backplate Weights, or Mixed. Tracking weight per dive helps you dial in your buoyancy across exposure suits and water types.
This section leads with three hero boxes: Water Temp, Visibility (a summary of the dropdown below), and Air Temp. Below them are two groups of fields.
| Field | Options |
|---|---|
| Dive Type | Your dive category (Recreational, Wreck, Cave, Night, Drift, and so on). The list is customisable. |
| Visibility | Excellent (>30 m / >100 ft), Good (15–30 m / 50–100 ft), Moderate (5–15 m / 15–50 ft), Poor (<5 m / <15 ft), or Unknown. |
| Water Type | Salt Water, Fresh Water, or Brackish. |
| Current Direction | A compass direction (N, NE, E, …), Variable, or None. |
| Current Strength | None, Light, Moderate, or Strong. |
| Swell Height | Surface swell, in your depth units. |
| Altitude | Height above sea level, for altitude dives. Entering a value warns you when the site is high enough to need altitude-adjusted decompression. |
| Entry Method / Exit Method | How you got in and out: Shore Entry, Boat Entry, Back Roll, Giant Stride, Seated Entry, Ladder, Platform, Jetty/Dock, or Other. |
Record surface weather, either by hand or automatically:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Fetch Weather | Pulls historical weather for the dive's date and site from the Open-Meteo service. Enabled once the dive has a site with coordinates. |
| Humidity | Relative humidity, as a percentage. |
| Wind Speed / Wind Direction | Surface wind, in your wind-speed units and a compass direction. |
| Surface Pressure | Atmospheric pressure in millibars (mbar). Standard at sea level is 1013 mbar. |
| Cloud Cover | Clear, Partly Cloudy, Mostly Cloudy, or Overcast. |
| Precipitation | None, Drizzle, Light Rain, Rain, Heavy Rain, Snow, Sleet, or Hail. |
| Weather Description | A free-text note. |
Note
Fetch Weather needs the dive's date and a dive site with coordinates, plus an internet connection. If weather is already filled in, Submersion asks before replacing it with the fetched values.
Open the Trip section to attach the dive to a Trip and a dive center. If a trip's dates already cover this dive's date, Submersion suggests it for you — tap Use to accept. The trip's date range and the dive center's location appear as captions beneath each row.
Open the Buddies section and add the people you dived with from your Buddies list. Each buddy carries a role you can change by tapping it:
- Buddy
- Dive Guide
- Instructor
- Student
- Divemaster
- Solo
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Rating | A one-to-five star rating for the dive. |
| Marine Life | Log species you saw, with a count and notes per sighting. Sightings link to the species catalogue — see Marine Life & Photos. |
| Notes | Free-text notes about the dive. |
| Tags | Free-form labels (for example shore, training, photography) you can later filter and search by. |
Marking a dive as a favorite and managing its photos are handled from the dive's detail view; see Marine Life & Photos for media.
Need to record something Submersion does not have a field for — a permit
number, camera settings, a guide's name? Tap + Add at the bottom of the form,
then Custom Fields. Each custom field is a name and a value (for
example Camera Settings = f/8 ISO400). Add as many as you like, reorder them by
dragging, and Submersion remembers the names you have used before to suggest them
on future dives.
Submersion records the data tech divers expect. Open-circuit divers can carry multiple stage and deco cylinders (see Tanks above) and log trimix mixes with helium, MOD, and MND. Choosing CCR or SCR as the dive mode reveals a settings panel.
Note
Decompression detail lives with the profile. Gradient factors (GF), the decompression algorithm, conservatism, ceilings, and oxygen-toxicity tracking — CNS (central-nervous-system oxygen toxicity) and OTU (oxygen tolerance units) — come from your dive computer or dive plan and are shown on Dive Profiles & Deco rather than typed into this form. The dive form captures the dive's facts; the profile page does the decompression analysis.
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Setpoints | Your target oxygen partial pressure in bar at three phases: Low (Desc/Asc) (typically ~0.7), High (Bottom) (~1.2–1.3), and Deco (~1.3–1.6). |
| Diluent Gas | The diluent mix (O2 / He), with quick chips for common diluents. |
| Scrubber | The carbon-dioxide scrubber Type (for example Sofnolime), its Rated life in minutes, and the Remaining minutes at the start of the dive. |
| Loop Volume | The breathing-loop volume in litres. |
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| SCR Type | CMF (Constant Mass Flow), PASCR (Passive Addition), or ESCR (Electronically Controlled). The fields below adapt to the type. |
| Injection Rate / Assumed VO2 | For CMF: the fresh-gas injection rate (L/min) and your assumed oxygen consumption (L/min). Submersion shows the resulting steady-state loop oxygen fraction. |
| Addition Ratio | For PASCR: the gas-addition ratio. |
| Orifice Size | For ESCR: the flow-control orifice. |
| Supply Gas | The injected gas mix (O2 / He), with chips for common enriched-air mixes. |
| Measured Loop O2 | Optional Min, Max, and Avg loop oxygen percentages you measured. |
| Scrubber | Same Type / Rated / Remaining fields as CCR. |
Not every dive starts as a blank form. You can download dives from a supported dive computer or import them from a wearable such as an Apple Watch Ultra, and they arrive already populated with depth profile, temperature, and (where available) heart rate and GPS.
- Use Log Dive → Import from Computer, or set things up from the Dive Computers screen. See Dive Computers and Import / Export.
- An imported dive keeps a record of where it came from (for example Apple Watch), shown on its detail page.
- If a downloaded dive looks like one you already have, Submersion flags it as a probable or possible duplicate and lets you merge the new data (such as a heart-rate trace) into the existing dive instead of creating a second copy.
You can open any imported dive in this same form to correct or add details by hand.
The Dives tab lists your whole log. Tap a dive to open its detail view; tap Edit there to return to the form.
Open the ⋮ (more) menu to switch how the list is drawn:
| View | Shows |
|---|---|
| Detailed | A full card per dive: number badge, site and date, two rows of stats, tags, and a mini depth-profile chart. |
| Compact | A two-line card with the essentials. |
| Table | A spreadsheet with one row per dive and columns you choose (see below). |
Your choice is remembered.
Tap the sort control (or a column header in Table view) to order dives by Date, Site, Max Depth, Bottom Time, Rating, or Dive Number. Tapping a Table header cycles ascending → descending → off; dives missing that value sort to the end.
The filter control opens a sheet covering:
- Date range (start and end)
- Dive type
- Dive site
- Dive computer
- Depth range (min / max)
- Bottom Time range (min / max)
- Gas mix — All, Air (21%), or Nitrox (>21%)
- Favorites only
- Minimum rating (stars)
- Buddy name
- Tags (pick any number; a dive matches if it carries any selected tag)
Active filters appear as removable chips above the list. Apply Filters runs them; Clear All resets them.
The search control searches your dives by site, buddy, and notes. For a finer search, the ⋮ menu offers Advanced Search, which adds grouped filters including location, conditions, gas and equipment, rating and tags, and your own custom fields.
Long-press any dive to enter selection mode, then tap to select more (or use Select All). With dives selected you can:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Delete | Removes the selected dives, with an Undo option for a few seconds. |
| Export | Saves them as a PDF Logbook, CSV spreadsheet, or UDDF (Universal Dive Data Format) file. See Import / Export. |
| Edit | Change Trip (move the dives onto a trip), Add Tags, or Remove Tags in bulk. |
In Table view, open the column picker to choose which columns appear. Columns are grouped by category (Core, Environment, Gas/Tank, Weight, Equipment, Deco, Physiology, Rebreather, People, Location, Trip, Rating, Metadata). For each visible column you can drag to reorder it, pin it to the left so it stays put while you scroll, or remove it; drag a header's edge to resize. Dive # and Site are pinned by default.
The columns shown out of the box are: Dive #, Site, Date/Time, Dive Type, Max Depth, Avg Depth, Runtime, Surface Interval, Primary Gas, Start Pressure, End Pressure, SAC Rate, Water Temp, Visibility, Current Strength, Entry Method, Buddy, Dive Master, Trip, Rating, Tags, and Notes.
- Your first dive — a guided walk-through of logging dive one.
- Dive Profiles & Deco — profiles, gradient factors, and oxygen tracking.
- Dive Computers — downloading dives from a computer or watch.
- Import / Export — bringing dives in from files and exporting your log.
- Glossary — SAC, MOD, MND, CNS, OTU, GF, and other terms.
Getting Started
Logging Your Dives
Your Dive World
Diver & Gear
Insights & Planning
Setup & Data
Reference