Dive operator and boat information

Most of your dives are made possible by dive professionals. A dive center picks you up, a boat takes you to the site, a captain drives it. Divebase already kept track of the buddies you were in the water with, and now you can note down also who made the dive possible, with three new fields on the dive: Operator, Boat and Captain. The dive roster is now complete.

They show up on the People tab of a dive, in a Dive operator panel below your buddies.

The People tab of a Divebase dive with five buddies, one marked as Guide, and the Dive operator panel below listing Blu Tek Diving as the operator and Blumar III as the boat

I wanted this because I dive all over the world, with a different dive center almost every time, and after a few years it gets hard to remember where I was and with whom. I also know I'm not the only one who filled these fields in MacDive for years, and I didn't want anyone to lose that when moving to Divebase.

Suggestions as you type

You fill the fields on the dive form, in a Dive operator panel after Logistics. They're free text, but you'll rarely type a name from scratch. Each field suggests the values you already used on other dives: click into it, or start typing, and the list narrows as you go. Pick one and the spelling stays the same across your logbook. Type something new and it's saved as it is.

The Dive operator panel on the Divebase dive form, "Blu" typed in the Operator field and the suggestion list narrowed to the dive centers already in the logbook, from Abissoblu to Blue Submarine

Operator is shared with trips, which already had an operator field. A dive center you named on a trip is suggested on your dives, and vice versa.

If you imported from MacDive, the three fields come across. Dives you imported before this change have been updated too, and the Operator, Boat and Boat captain lines have been removed from their notes.

On your phone too

The iPhone and Android apps show the operator in the People section of a dive, below the buddies, and you can edit it from there. Like everything else, it syncs both ways.

The People screen of a dive on the Divebase iPhone app, a guide and four buddies above a Dive operator card with Blu Tek Diving and the boat Blumar III

The People screen of a dive on the Divebase Android app, a guide and two buddies above a Dive operator card with Blu Tek Diving and the boat Blumar III

Both apps are still in closed beta. If you'd like to try them, head to the page for your platform and ask for an invite.

You'll notice there's no field for the guide or the divemaster. That's a buddy role, because the guide is in the water with you. The operator is still plain text for now; a proper dive center record is on the list, but it's a bigger piece of work. Dive safe! 🤿