Planning and diving Solo

[DaleC]

Just thought I'd give a brief rundown of my second solo. How I approached it and what happened. I find the resource material for practically planning and diving solo is somewhat limited so perhaps it might add something to the discussion on how others plan and execute their solo dives as well.

1.) I chose a familiar site (Whytecliff cove) that I have dove multiple times before. The bay is well known with no overhead or obvious entanglement hazards, has defined walls and a sloping bottom that is well defined and straight forward to traverse.

2.) I checked the tide charts and chose to dive with an incoming tide.

3.) I chose an avg. depth to dive of 20'-30' (a bail out depth I feel comfortable with) a max depth of 50' and a max dive time of 45 min.

4.) I recorded my max. depth, max. time, a sketch of the bay, my intended route and compass bearings on my slate and I set the max depth and time alarms on my computer. Here's what it looked like (without the blue shark stuff).

5.) I originally wanted to try out a new pair of fins I bought but rejected the idea to avoid the additional task loading. I will test the fins with a buddy.

6.) I arrived early at the dive site and took my time suiting up so I could focus.

7.) I spent a few minutes to center myself and (try to suppress the scoffing) do some positive affirmations. These basically follow the theme that I am a good diver, have the capacity to deal with anything I might encounter, will be calm and will enjoy my dive. I believe you are who you think you are and you do what you think you will do. For me, this isn't meant to replace proper planning or to be blind to real risks but rather, to prepare myself to deal with them in a positive manner.

8.) I executed my dive as planned, checking routinely my air, depth and dive time. Everything went according to plan until I saw the sharks at 25 minutes into the dive...

OK, they were only 3'-4' long mudsharks The divers in tropical locals are probably rolling their eyes but come on, these were my very first sharks. They look different when you are in the tank with them. The vis was about 30' and when the first one swam into view I thought "Gee that looks like a big fish.. oh, it's a shark". When the second one swam in I thought "Oh.. there are two of them". Then they began to circle (probably as curious about strangers as I was) but at the time I was trying to keep both in my field of vision and wondered how many more were out there in the gloom? One, alone was small but...?

At that point I was a little spooked and had to do some self talk to relax. After putting things into proper perspective I decided to continue diving my plan and did so without further incident (though I did do a few "crazy Ivans" along the way). Dive time 43 min. Max. dive depth 40'.

My next solo will probably be a repeat after some more dives with buddies to familiarize myself with different gear configurations. By then I plan to be fully redundant for all gear (including long poky stick!).

 

[spectrum]

J
7.) I spent a few minutes to center myself and (try to suppress the scoffing) do some positive affirmations. These basically follow the theme that I am a good diver, have the capacity to deal with anything I might encounter, will be calm and will enjoy my dive. I believe you are who you think you are and you do what you think you will do. For me, this isn't meant to replace proper planning or to be blind to real risks but rather, to prepare myself to deal with them in a positive manner.

Are you sure you are really ready for this or really want to do this? It sounds like you are talking yourself into the dive.

Positive affirmations are good stuff but as a diver you are largely what you have become not just what you think you are.

I'm fairly new to the solo side with abut a dozen. When I was considering it and had similar thoughts I decided it was not yet time.

What is the point of having a time limit on a shallow dive? A pressure limit at which you modify the planned route to insure a timely exit would be more relevant to me.

I don't mean to be harsh here, I'm just bouncing what you're saying against the road I traveled as food for thought.

Good job on taking your time setting up and keeping your cool when the sharks stopped by up. We ran into a dog fish a month or so a go on a buddy dive. It's a benign 4 foot sort of shark. Despite being considered harmless it did still command my attention!

Pete

 

[r2t]

With all this talk about 6 gills and mud sharks around whytecliff I think I will pack some depends with me on my next dive.
I have been soloing for a while now if your interested we could do a solo buddy dive..lol and you can see how I set my gear up and do a safety plan.

Cheers
Ron L.

 

[RumBum]

I'd say it is a normal and healthy thing to listen to that little voice your head, realize something new may be scary, and talk yourself into going anyway. If we never did anything that might be scary then we would not do much at all.

 

[dpbishop]

Your profile says 25-49 dives. I had over 500 before I did a planned solo dive. Why are you going solo at this level of experience? Are you having trouble finding a buddy?

Have you practiced OOA ascents with a buddy? I would recommend doing that a few times before putting yourself in a situation where you have to do it alone.

Don't mean to rain on your parade, but it's easy to overestimate your abilities when you haven't had to test them under all possible conditions. I would recommend some more time spent with buddies before committing to solo.

Or maybe you just need to update your profile?

 

[dumpsterDiver]

The positive affirmations sounds a little corny to me also.

I myself will often go through a routine of "visuallization" of the dive and mentally run through a few probable occurances of the dive. However, without having a pretty broad experience base, it is hard to do an effective visuallization of the dive. Sometimes I get pretty nervous before a solo dive of 180 ft or so and the visuallization does help me.

As for using positive affirmations to remind yourself that you can handle anything the ocean has to throw at you is pretty laughable, really. I prefer to do realistic visuallization and also say a prayer before and after the dive to "help' with the multitude of potential situations that I know are pretty much out of my control and are also deadly if things go south.

Personally I think solo dives are mostly challenging from a mental aspect. Most buddies provide more of a pyschological crutch rather than a true margin of safety. It sounds to me like you are ready to dive solo.

 

[DaleC]

Are you sure you are really ready for this or really want to do this? It sounds like you are talking yourself into the dive.

Positive affirmations are good stuff but as a diver you are largely what you have become not just what you think you are.

Hi, Pete. Thanks for the input! I'm pretty comfortable with soloing. While I haven't been diving as long as others my previous pastime(obsession) was mountaineering where I soloed and free soloed many rock, ice and alpine routes. The skills are different but the headspace, situational awareness, risk assessment etc.. are pretty much the same. I am approaching solo diving pretty well the same way I approached solo climbing.
The positive self talk isn't talking myself into it but more along the lines of visualization techniques that many athletes use before engaging in their sport. Without going into details one basically see's oneself pre performing the task. In the case of diving, coping with events in a relaxed, calm, capable manner. You run the perfect run a dozen times in your head and then you go out and run the perfect run. How we interpret a situation, and our response to it, comes from a.) our practical experience which is practised before hand and b.) our mental attitude which we take into the water with us. The self talk deals with the second but is not intended to replace the first.

What is the point of having a time limit on a shallow dive? A pressure limit at which you modify the planned route to insure a timely exit would be more relevant to me.

Even though, in this case there is no "concrete" reason for the limits, I set max time and depth limits to avoid deviating from my dive plan. They are just the self imposed boundaries that I allow myself to play within on that dive. On the surface I did a risk assessment (as with a buddy dive) and pretty much tried to dive that plan. In a worst case scenario I feel I can probably bail from 30'-50' so that sets my max D and I know from experience that I can do 45min. at that depth with plenty of reserve gas so that sets my max T. With a buddy I might deviate, both of us counter balancing a risk assessment underwater but (for now) when I do a solo I want to create a conservative plan that I'm confident in and part of a self imposed safety factor is that I will not deviate from the plan. If something unknown comes up to alter the plan in a way that creates a different dive than the one I've planned I have already made a self agreement to call the dive (the sharks almost got me there). In time I'm sure I will feel more comfortable winging it on a solo but for the early ones my goal is to execute simple, straight forward dives.

Ron, Hello there you fellow LD diver you! I'm tied up this week/end but will PM you about heading out together.

 

[DaleC]

Hey, no fair! You guys posted while I was posting

I was thinking of changing my dive count to none, not certified but I want to be honest, even if it draws some flack.

DpBishop and D Diver, Thanks for the input! I do value everyones insight but I've always known I would solo, It's just who I am. I value self reliance and I think it makes me a better buddy. Countering that, as you can see, I am soloing pretty conservatively and will continue to do so until my skills increase (so the 180 solo's are out for now). I have a regular group of divers that I buddy with and we do actually do dive plans, pre dive checks and drills during our dives. I also train in the pool (fin kick laps and dynamic apnea).
Probably we are on the same track with the positive affirmation/visualization thing (sounds the same to me) but I want to know what the difference between affirmations and prayer are . I thought I'd throw that part of my dive plan in as there is so much emphasis on mechanical skills out there but not a lot on mental skills while the greatest tools we have are our minds. We all say "keep calm" but what techniques can one practise or develop to increase ones calmness. It's just one thing that has worked for me over the years but it certainly isn't the only or definative one.

 

[ClayJar]

I guess I'd better not mention that my first solo dive was log page 10.

I also have a strong background in soloing at various things. (In my case, it was more hiking, driving, and paddling.) Obviously, I didn't jump right in and solo the Spiegel Grove as a shore dive, but at the same time, I saw nothing mysterious about solo diving. It's just a different set of constraints, yielding a bit more preparation and a somewhat different mindset.

In my case, I'd done plenty of research, and I'd done enough backyard pool work (solo!) to have buoyancy and such be completely second-nature. With the physics of diving out of the way, all that remained was the actual execution of the dive. I happen to know that I'm probably *just* this side of OCD, plus I have an engineering degree. Add those together, and monitoring my dive's parameters was hardly difficult (as it would likely be for someone who is not as at home in the realms of dials and physics and math and estimations... plus an inescapable attention to detail). Am I a more skilled diver now than I was at my first solo? Sure I am, but at the same time I was probably more attentive during my first solo (since I didn't have the innate ability to approximate the dive, I had to actually parse the numbers more often).

Anyway, back to the thread... I for one am pleased by the amount of thought you put into the plan. While I may have made a different plan for myself, I see no reason to criticize yours (which seems to apply well enough to you, eh? :biggrin. You added constraints that I may have forgone, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with adding constraints (especially to a solo dive!). It seems quite reasonable to "over-constrain" your early forays into solo diving, as that provides you with not only a larger contingency space but also a handy opportunity to practice working within constraints (which may be of significant importance in the future dives).

As for the positive mental reinforcement, that's *completely* unlike me (engineering, remember? If my internal and external parameters say I'm good, that's my necessary and sufficient right there). Still, I should certainly hope that not everyone is precisely the same as I, as in short order we'd all drive ourselves nuts and probably throw things overboard.

The one warning that I would mention is beware of comfort. Being comfortable only means that you don't notice anything going wrong; it does not necessarily mean that everything is going well. (This applies as much to buddy diving as it does to solo diving, but in solo diving, you have no buffer (real or perceived) between you and the consequences.) Obviously, if you feel *uncomfortable*, figure out why and address the situation. Just don't let feeling comfortable make you complacent. (Egregious example: If you don't watch your air, you can feel perfectly comfortable... right up until you find your tank empty.)

As long as you always stay attentive and you never stop learning (and finding things *to* learn), you should certainly enjoy being comfortable, but don't fall for the trap.

 

[captain]

Personally I think solo dives are mostly challenging from a mental aspect. Most buddies provide more of a pyschological crutch rather than a true margin of safety. It sounds to me like you are ready to dive solo.

I agree, solo diving is more a mental issue than anything else. Buddies tend to give each other a feeling of comfort that may or more likely may not be real. My first dives were also my first solo dives.