Are you "Solo Certified"?

[drbill]

I think that any card beyond open water certified (in recreational diving) is superfluous. Any experienced dive master or instructor should be able to see if you are skilled enough to dive by yourself.

Something like a Solo Cert is just a way for the operators to say NO first without being jerks. They can (at their discretion) allow you to dive however you want, once you've demonstrated the skills required, with or without the card that says so. If you say you have 1,000 dives, and can't maintain buoyancy, then I'd have to guess you were lying, and they would probably NOT let you solo dive. If they see you are competent (on the first day of a 5 day trip) then I'd have to guess they'd let you solo dive - with or without a card.

I have to disagree with you, my friend (missed you in Long Beach).

I think THE most important thing to know about a diver (or a diver about themselves) before allowing them to dive solo is how they respond to emergency situations. If they quickly panic, I would not want them diving solo off my boat (nor would I want them as a dive buddy). If they respond in a level-headed, rational way and move towards correcting the situation, then I'd think they were far better candidates for solo diving.

This is something many divers don't (yet) know about themselves. After 50 years on SCUBA, I've learned that I almost always respond to emergencies with a clear head (state of denial?) and instinctively initiate actions to resolve the problem. The one time I truly panicked was at the surface in a 3-4 knot current when my pony reg got caught on the current line and I kept getting pulled under without sufficient air in my main tank to breathe from and no way to open the pony valve while hanging onto the current line with one hand and holding my housing with the other.

 

[Teamcasa]

I think that any card beyond open water certified (in recreational diving) is superfluous. Any experienced dive master or instructor should be able to see if you are skilled enough to dive by yourself.

Something like a Solo Cert is just a way for the operators to say NO first without being jerks. They can (at their discretion) allow you to dive however you want, once you've demonstrated the skills required, with or without the card that says so. If you say you have 1,000 dives, and can't maintain buoyancy, then I'd have to guess you were lying, and they would probably NOT let you solo dive. If they see you are competent (on the first day of a 5 day trip) then I'd have to guess they'd let you solo dive - with or without a card.

Diving, like so many other activities, have their quirky rules, often made up to suit the moment.
A skilled diver can spot another skilled diver in just a few minutes after they descend. The cards they carry is often misleading.

 

[Stoo]

Truer words were never spoken. This tendency to "over-certify" as dictated by PADI, diminishes the value of the certification. My daughter learned how to dive in Utila this past winter. Within a matter of a few weeks, she was enrolled in a Divemaster Program! WTF??? She had never been diving outside of a course (i.e. without an Instructor in the water with her) and here she was training to become a DM!

I ended up going down for a week to make sure she had a clue about what she was doing, and while she was ok... quite good in fact... in the water, the fact remained that she had amassed more certifications in 6 weeks/35 dives than I had in 37 years/4000 dives!

Along the same lines, I dove with a guy this weekend who I generally dive with once a year. It was a pleasure watching him and my "irregular" buddy in the water. We racked up a fair bit of deco and nobody even touched a line or rock on the way up, just holding at the prescribed depths pretty much motionless as we off-gassed...

Cards are nice, but in my opinion, many simply mean you took the course and paid the money, but may or may not mean you can actually dive...

 

[ApexLongimanus]

certified to allow me to go and do my own thing if i don't have a buddy where a cert is recognized and required (e.g. dutch springs).

 

[sylpha]

i'm not 'certified' to dive a wreck, to take photographs or many other of the 'specialities' other training organisations require, i'm equipped to solo & have been diving 20 years. who says i need a piece of card or a badge for this?

 

[Rhone Man]

I just signed up for a week on the T+C Explorer and I asked about solo diving. Mrs. Stoo is unlikely to want to do five dives a day, and I want to max out my time in the water. They told me that if I was solo-certified, and properly equipped (including a pony, which they will rent...) they were normally fine with it, subject to the DMs approval.

I don't have a solo card, but I telephoned in relation to another of their liveaboards and asked if they would let me dive solo on a TDI technical cert - based on the fact that they teach the same self-reliance skills. I got a lot of waffle which amounted to a definite maybe - probably down to the DM's discretion on whether I struck him as an idiot or not. In the end I didn't book the trip (for unrelated reasons) so I never did find out.

 

[Rhone Man]

Something like a Solo Cert is just a way for the operators to say NO first without being jerks.

It also lets them "sell" the solo certification course on the liveaboard.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

I don't have a solo card, but I telephoned in relation to another of their liveaboards and asked if they would let me dive solo on a TDI technical cert - based on the fact that they teach the same self-reliance skills. I got a lot of waffle which amounted to a definite maybe - probably down to the DM's discretion on whether I struck him as an idiot or not. In the end I didn't book the trip (for unrelated reasons) so I never did find out.

I'd be happy to travel to the BVI and fix that.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

i'm not 'certified' to dive a wreck, to take photographs or many other of the 'specialities' other training organisations require, i'm equipped to solo & have been diving 20 years. who says i need a piece of card or a badge for this?

I'm in that same boat (don't have a boat diving c-card either) ... and although I've taught many drysuit classes, and issued many drysuit certification cards, I don't own one ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Akimbo]

I think that any card beyond open water certified (in recreational diving) is superfluous. Any experienced dive master or instructor should be able to see if you are skilled enough to dive by yourself...

I agree they should, and do the majority of the time. Unfortunately the few exceptions can range from aggravating to ruining your trip. I just got my card to keep those snot-nosed common-air-breathing “dive masters” with less time in the water than I have in decompression during a good year off my 6… who, me bitter?

I had one jerk look at my US Navy Saturation card who didn’t know what saturation was. Then I showed him my earliest card from a recognized Scuba training organization and asked if I had done any diving in the last 35 years. Fortunately the skipper stepped in, looked at my gear, and said “he’s OK”.

It is nice to have to the card to set charter boat skipper’s at ease from the insurance standpoint.