What is your motivation to solo dive?

[Cthippo]

I feel like "solo" and "team" are forks in the pecking order (have we tortured this analogy enough yet?).

Ideally, someone would be adequately skilled to do either, but that is a "nice to have" skillset. The thing with solo and team is they are not in the same hierarchy, you can be highly skilled at one without ever doing the other.

 

[steinbil]

Hopefully a team diver isn’t going to fall to pieces when they’ve lost their team. Is that the same as #3?

I'm trying to avoid derailing this thread even further (not doing a great job...), but I'll just say this:
A good team diver is not only self-reliant but has the capacity to be an asset to the team, making the team bigger than the sum of its parts. This is different from two self-reliant divers that just happen to dive in the same vicinity. A good team adds safety and efficiency. This obviously does not work if not all members of the team are capable. Leaning on others is not teamwork.

AFAIK pretty much all the skills needed for a solo dive, you need to be a team diver. But you also need teamwork, communication and interpersonal skills to be a good team diver.

 

[Celt]

In the winter and in bad weather i hunt for interesting dives, Today i found an old mill that seems to have been damed to make a reservoir at some time, long abandoned now. Need a plan to get in, explore, stay safe and get out on my own. I'm not fussy if I'm solo or self reliant, and don't need any cards. There just words really.

 

[Bazzathemammoth]

Agree, the realisation that you're on your own, isolated and no hope of help of any kind is a totally different mind space than having a buddy with you or on the boat. When the land recedes behind you and there's nothing but you and the ocean, you do things differently than with mates. I'd squeeze through places and do stuff with a buddy that I wouldn't dare attempt solo. Everything from getting in to getting out must be done differently solo. You know there's no room for mistakes.

Yes! I’ve done a lot of solo sailing and that 100% responsibility and self reliance gives a very different experience. Both solo sailing and diving requires more planning and consideration of all the possible ways things can go wrong and how you can fix them without outside help.

Is a great buzz though, there’s nothing quite like doing exactly what you want, how you want, with no consideration for anyone else.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

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Hopefully a team diver isn’t going to fall to pieces when they’ve lost their team. Is that the same as #3?

If a team diver falls to pieces if they get separated from the rest of their team then they aren’t very self reliant are they?
Self reliance is as much about a persons mental state as it is about gear and skills.

 

[MB NZ]

Re: certifications. Useful to keep (some, but not all) dive operators happy. I did SDI Solo Diver after I had done some technical qualifications and didn't learn anything new. However, my instructor made me do "solo" ascents and other tasks with no mask. That focused the mind, although I'm not sure it was strictly part of the course.

 

[Celt]

Yes! I’ve done a lot of solo sailing and that 100% responsibility and self reliance gives a very different experience. Both solo sailing and diving requires more planning and consideration of all the possible ways things can go wrong and how you can fix them without outside help.

Is a great buzz though, there’s nothing quite like doing exactly what you want, how you want, with no consideration for anyone else.

Weeks, even days at sea on your own is very sobering and no place for a bad conscience. What you really learn solo is about yourself.

 

[SlugLife]

• My main "dive-buddy" since I started diving, solo-dives. Perhaps I could get another dive-buddy, but he's a good friend and also has a boat.
• Visibility is absolutely terrible. Even while looking at my buddy and being a 3-6 feet away, I can easily lose visibility of them 5 to 10 times. When I do have dive-buddies they don't pay attention, and couple with the previous vis, if I don't watch them like a hawk, we'll get separated in no time.
• I do a lot of "treasure diving" and if you're watching your buddy, or having to coordinate with a buddy, you're not looking for treasure, or going where you want. Many of these locations are only accessible by boat, meaning I have 2x 1-hour dives and that's it. The few times I do buddy-treasure-dive, I find very little.
• I also like to go into the zero-vis areas (can't see dive-watch in front of your mask), and feel for treasure, and I can get lots of treasure at times largely because other divers won't do the same. There's also a process to it, for example, moving at a very slow pace and feeling your way along to both find items and avoid bumping into or getting entangled in things. I'm pretty certain nobody else wants to dive that, not to mention buddy-diving would be near impossible, and offer no benefits. How do you stay together, a tether? And if you have an issue, like an entanglement or OOA, how would the buddy know much less assist?
• I'm reasonably well equipped for solo, with redundant air, redundant buoyancy, redundant powerful cutting devices and a redundancy-mindset where I don't dive without full redundancy.
• Even when buddy-diving, you're often effectively solo. Perhaps you lose contact, they swim off to look at fishes, the buddy may need assistance themselves, and there are dozens of reasons why the buddy may not be able to assist or rescue you.
• The "buddy hazard" exists; meaning a buddy who puts the other diver in danger. This could come in a variety of forms, including ego, sloppiness, dangerous-behavior, or the needing rescue.
• For me personally, buddy-checks cause me to make mistakes. Focusing while someone is talking with or interacting with me is practically impossible. The only times I've made any moderate pre-dive mistakes so far (i.e. forgetting mask), is when someone was doing a buddy-check (which distracted me). Which also highlights that the buddy-check missed the mistake.
• Hands off my equipment! It's nothing personal, but I've heard/seen/read too many stories of people's tanks being turned off by someone else who thought they were being helpful and turning on a tank. Any time someone touches your equipment, they transform it from a known-state to an unknown state.
• I sometimes do solo-skill or equipment-check dives. Go to a relatively easy safe area, with a gradually sloping shore, and take my time. This is great when working with unfamiliar equipment, practicing skills, or getting into the dive-season after a 5 month winter interruption.
• When shore-diving, I sidemount 2x full sized tanks, and disappear under the waves for 3 hours.

 

[SlugLife]

My teenage son is my most frequent dive buddy, and he is into underwater photography. I started thinking about a pony tank/getting into the solo mindset when I realized that if I had a problem while he was taking 5 minutes of video of an octopus I might be in trouble (I do carry a rattle also). I also realized that with any buddy, there can always be times when they are distracted.

Also, as he gets older (going to college soon) I will not always have my regular dive buddy. So, solo diving for me was the best answer.

Here is some info on pony tanks:

What Are Your "Pro-Tips" for Safety, Redundancy, and Accident Handling

What are your "pro tips" (or amateur tips) for improving one's safety when diving? This can be equipment, redundancy, skills, training, mindset, pretty much anything! This can also be relevant to accident-prevention, incident-handling, self-rescue, other-rescue, etc. Disclaimer: Per usual...

scubaboard.com

I have no desire to solo now or in the future, but I can sure appreciate your motivations. Makes a lot of sense to me. But I can see myself adding a pony bottle into my kit at some point...just because.
Edit: Maybe equipped to go solo, but never dive truly solo.

Having the skills, equipment, and redundancy to enable you to self-rescue is something I recommend to ALL divers, including those who never dive solo. Afterall, what is the dive-buddy? Perhaps company, but in practical terms the majority of a dive-buddy's utility is about redundancy.

For example, lets say you run OOA, but then discover your buddy is also OOA? That's just one example; perhaps your (insta)buddy swam off, is looking at fishes, had a heart-attack, refuses to share air, has a broken regulator, cannot manage bouyancy, they you to die, zero-vis, or for perhaps hundreds of potential reasons your "swimming pony tank" is cannot or will not help you. It's not the number of scenarios, but rather how common some of these scenarios are ... do you really want your only redundancy having a mind of it's own and swimming off, because that's real-world dive buddies.

Would you rather your last thought be a self-righteous "my buddy is an ******* and killed me, I hope the entire world knows that" or just realize you've got redundancy (air, light, cutting-devices, etc depending on the dive) with you, and your "emergency" is now a very minor annoyance.

/rant

 

[SlugLife]

BS. Yes, you need to be self-reliant and responsible to be a good teammate, but that doesn't make a team dive a solo dive. The fact that you need the same skills to dive safely whether you are in a team or solo does not make one like the other.

"Well actually, there's a buddy with you!" We're not stupid. The concept "every dive is a solo (self-reliant) dive, even when diving with others" primarily refers to mentality, safety, preparation, and pragmatism.

• Pragmatism: A dive-buddy's practical purpose is redundancy; but they're also an unreliable redundancy. For many reasons your buddy may not be able to assist in an emergency. Scroll up to my previous post, there's plenty of details and examples there.
• Safety: Your #1 priority is your own safety, and your buddy's #1 priority is theirs. Perhaps the most important point emphasized in dive-rescue courses, is to never endanger yourself to rescue another diver. If the needs-rescue diver is panicking dangerously, or you don't have enough air for the both of you, your buddy better hope they can successfully complete and survive a CESA. Would you rather die in that scenario, or have the means of self "rescue."
• Mentality & Preparation: One's mentality and preparation approaches every dive, as if the redundancy provided by a dive-buddy doesn't count. One should be able to self-rescue and handle nearly any anticipatable emergency without assistance. OOA, entanglements, getting lost, BCD failure, other equipment issues/loss/failure, currents, etc. What those emergencies might be, or how to handle them is a long discussion (and somewhat situational).
• Bonus: If you do need to rescue or assist another diver, you'll be that much better prepared. Much of the redundancy can be shared with a buddy, or be used to assist. Similarly, your buddy might be a backup-backup plan in the rare scenario your redundancy also fails at the same time.

"...but I have a dive buddy!"

That's great! Ideally, the dive-buddy is the 3rd or 4th "line of defense" when your 1st (primary) and 2nd (redundancy) and possibly 3rd (redundant redundancy) all fail at the same time.

"...but I have a dive buddy!"

This is only a recommendation, I don't tell anyone else how to dive. Anyone who follows this advice will be safer. But feel free to ditch the redundant air, cutting-devices, etc and in an emergency have your life in your dive-buddy's hands. That's how most diver are taught on OW. However, for everyone else who wants to "level up" their safety, you can start by thinking about "hmmm, what if my insta-buddy can't help?"