Bad attitudes about solo diving are still prevalent

[TrimixToo]

Assertions without proof are opinions. I conclude, as I have many times before, that all we have is opinions. And, that's my entire point; I have no other agenda. We have *opinions* about the relative safety of solo diving and solo swimming vs. participating in these activities with a buddy. The source pool (no pun intended) for swimmers is so much larger than the one for divers that I would expect to find some data there, but no soap.

So these recommendations propagate, with implicit assumptions as often as not, but there are enough counterexamples to give one pause. You need look no further than the A&I forum right here on SB for any number of double (or more) fatalities.

We truly do not know whether it's safer or less safe to dive (or swim) alone. I certainly do not claim to know.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

What's true of divers and dive shops is also true, to some extent, of destinations - some are more 'solo-friendly' or 'hostile' than others.

Researching Curacao, I noticed Ocean Encounters and Dive Bus forbid it. Go West Diving's website includes this blurb "Solo Diving is not allowed under any circumstance(s)," but a former employee indicated if you're solo certified & have proper equipment they'd allow it, and awhile back I e-mailed Go West and confirmed that was still the case. Here's a piece from the e-mail I got back in early August from Go West

"On Solo diving, we still have the same opinion Andreas had given you.

We do not, nor will we advertise with Solo diving at the moment.
We do accept solodivers that have all the equipment needed in redundancy, so if you have a 2 computers, 2 regulatorsets, a slate, extra mask, extra signaling devices, and so on....

You can rent tanks with us, that won’t be a problem.
But, like I said, we do not advertise with solo diving at the moment."

Compare that to the 'dive freedom' of Bonaire. And if you just enjoy contentious discussions vainly trying to get to the bottom of why a restrictive policy is in place, start a thread determined to solo shore dive on Grand Cayman.

Why is solo diving the 'red-headed step-child' of scuba diving? (Hoping the figure of speech is widely understood).

Richard.

I am completely bemused by this reply. I have been solo diving since I started diving in 1959. I have dived rivers, various ocean environments, and even as a USAF Pararescueman made solo parascuba jumps. I mad a number of river current solo dives in the Clackamas River this summer and fall, documenting the aquatic underwater life of the river. I have rarely had two regulators (only when experimenting with an independent doubles configuration). Many dives are with vintage equipment, such as double tanks with a U.S. Divers Company Mistral double hose regulator.

Extra mask? No! If I loose my mask (which has never happened, even with parascuba jumps), I would simply surface. Or, end the dive sans mask.

Two computers? Why? I'm not even diving to depths requiring decompression. Even if I do, and would be concerned about a computer going out, I would simply use my Seiko dive watch, depth gauge and a set of waterproof tables as my backup.

I can see requiring an extra signaling device, as I have used that in the past, but if you want to carry this redundancy stuff to the extreme, why not carry an extra fin too (I have lost a fin during a surf rescue exercise for my NAUI Instructor Training Course (I'm NAUI #2710). But a diver can actually function without one fin (or actually without fins at all--one USAF Pararescueman (PJ) who will go unnamed made a parascuba jump for a NASA SimEx (simulated exercise) on an Apollo capsule mockup without fins, and was successful in placing the floatations collar on the capsule with his fellow PJ. So I see these solo requirements as rather amusing.

Here's a short video of one of my dives in 2016:


SeaRat

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I do find it somewhat amusing the number of posters who promote backup air sources, masks, computers, etc. for solo diving. Did something happen to them during a buddy dive? Have they all experienced equipment failures enough times to warrant these beliefs?
I did lose a fin during a rocky shore entry and managed to not only survive but make a 90 minute dive. I dived without an octopus and computer for many years. I've dived in deep, dirty water miles from shore without losing any gear. Perhaps I'm just lucky enough to have my gear work every time.

 

[chrisch]

I do find it somewhat amusing the number of posters who promote backup air sources, masks, computers, etc. for solo diving. Did something happen to them during a buddy dive? Have they all experienced equipment failures enough times to warrant these beliefs?
I did lose a fin during a rocky shore entry and managed to not only survive but make a 90 minute dive. I dived without an octopus and computer for many years. I've dived in deep, dirty water miles from shore without losing any gear. Perhaps I'm just lucky enough to have my gear work every time.

I too can look back over many years of diving without any memorable failure of equipment. I have had bad experience with the Seiko computers but beyond that nothing worthy of note.

However, the low cost of modern equipment and the fact a lot of us have too much of it anyway makes the "belt and braces" reasonable. I can clip a deco tank onto my kit for redundant gas. Whatever is in it will breathe better than water. I shall not need it so the gas is still there for another dive where I do need it.

I have two computers. They are cheap so it is foolish not to have a spare. Imagine being on a multi day multi dive vacation and your computer fails and you cannot dive. So if you have two it's easy enough to use both (assuming you dive deep enough to need one at all)

Masks? There are several of them in my (3) kit bags. I don't know how many to be honest. Maybe three or four.

Would I make a dive solo without any of this if I had to? Yes of course. But if it is sat there doing nothing why not take it and have that extra backup that normally a buddy provides? If nothing else it is a good way to silence the doom monger naysayers that seem to find solo diving as some sort of madness.

 

[happy-diver]

Perhaps educating to prevent, rather than courting failure, may one day help
overcome these superstitions brought by those devoid of the mental fortitude
to understand completely the psychology of accomplishing dives, those, all of
whom do not know nor trust their gear, nor trust themselves, and who should
be kept out of our waters until they learn their gear and their minds are strong.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I dived without an octopus and computer for many years. I've dived in deep, dirty water miles from shore without losing any gear. Perhaps I'm just lucky enough to have my gear work every time.

I recently added an octopus when my girlfriend started diving and I now have a buddy. I don't see any use for one without a buddy, and figure that if my GF is watching her SPG I don't need it for her either. In the near future I plan to teach her buddy breathing in the pool. She doesn't have an octopus and we've had a couple of instructors/DMs comment on it but nobody said we had to have one to dive from their boat. Maybe they assumed I would buddy breathe with her if I somehow suddenly ran out of air. I also wonder if these naysayers have had equipment failures and that's why they worry so much. In the course of nearly 50 years and thousands of dives the only equipment failure I can recall was with my brand-new Sherwood regulator back in '83--it was flowing ever-so-slightly. I unscrewed the diaphragm cap a little and it stopped and continued with the dive. Are we just lucky or does luck favor the prepared? A little routine maintenance seems to bring a lot of luck. Also, I used a computer for the first time last month. I got it because a friend bought a new one and didn't care much for this one. On the dive boat the DM asked "who is diving with a computer?" Almost everyone raised their hand, but it was not a requirement on that particular boat. Basically it told me what I already knew and I found it easier to maintain my safety stop with a depth gauge. I also realized that my girlfriend, who is only OW, did not really understand what her computer is telling her because she was not taught the dive tables. We went over them and now she gets it. I think that the computer, for typical recreational diving, is probably good for people who don't plan their dives and are all over the place and not paying attention to their NDLs and constantly changing depths, much like how the GPS (or Loran C in the old days) is good for boaters who don't plot a course and just go all over the place and hope that the electronic gadget works when it's time to go home.

 

[CT-Rich]

The one time you need a back up for breathing gas, having a spare in the boat won’t do you much good. I don’t bring a spare mask in the water and I don’t bring a spare computer. If either fail I will get back to the surface fine. I have an Air2 , to avoid having an octopus and would donate my primary in an OOA. A second computer would be a good idea if you are going near the NDL, or on a trip where a computer failure would cost future dives. I consider ditchable weight to be my redundant buoyancy.

Not having an octopus for you or on your girlfriend’s novice rig is a little troubling. There is a reason they don’t train for buddy breathing any more. Even if you and she are competent at it, things change when one person panics and you might find yourself wrestling for the one available air source. Or worse, you might find that another diver off the same charter comes to you OOA and has no clue how to buddy breath and, in that moment is not receptive to training...

An octopus is not particularly expensive to own and maintain or even that cumbersome to bring in the water. I think it is really hard to justify not including it on your rig or your girlfriend’s. Just MHO.

 

[boulderjohn]

I too can look back over many years of diving without any memorable failure of equipment.

Counting on equipment not breaking on a dive is a form of "normalization of deviance." It is the thinking that sent the Challenger Spacecraft up to its fatal explosion.

When considering the potential for equipment failure on a dive, you have to assess not only the likelihood of failure, you have to assess the consequences of that failure as well.

• Loss of mask? Highly unlikely, and on a recreational dive, you should be able to surface without it. In a cave, you might well have a problem.
• Failed computer? Highly unlikely, and on a recreational dive, you should be able to surface without it. On a decompression dive, you could be in serious trouble without a backup.
• Light failure? Highly unlikely, and on a daytime recreational dive, you should be able to surface without it. On a night dive, you should still be able to surface without it, but you could have problems. Better take two. In a cave, you are toast without a light. Better take three.
• Loss of breathing gas because of either not paying attention to gas supply or a regulator failure? Highly unlikely, and on a recreational dive, it would all depend upon how comfortable you feel doing a CESA at the worst moment of your dive. In the open water at 30 feet? No problem. Inside a wreck at 80 feet? Not so good. On a decompression dive or in a cave? You are toast.

 

[chrisch]

Counting on equipment not breaking on a dive is a form of "normalization of deviance." It is the thinking that sent the Challenger Spacecraft up to its fatal explosion.

When considering the potential for equipment failure on a dive, you have to assess not only the likelihood of failure, you have to assess the consequences of that failure as well.

Yes, very much so. What is the worst case scenario? Clearly the loss of all your breathing gas is a "bad thing" but less of a problem in 10 feet of water than at 130 feet. The surface is no use if you cannot get there though and so for solo diving it is possibly more important to have ditchable weight.

There are endless permutations of dive circumstances and hazards. Provided the diver has given it some thought and mitigated the risk where possible then I don't see the problem with solo diving. To my mind these are the things that should be taught on a solo training course. Normal open water training doesn't give enough consideration to the issues as they assume a buddy. That's not to say a person "needs" a formal training course - you can work all this out for yourself and with excellent resources like Scubaboard to call on.

I agree that complacency is your #1 enemy in any hazardous pursuit.

 

[lermontov]

Counting on equipment not breaking on a dive is a form of "normalization of deviance." It is the thinking that sent the Challenger Spacecraft up to its fatal explosion.

When considering the potential for equipment failure on a dive, you have to assess not only the likelihood of failure, you have to assess the consequences of that failure as well.

• Loss of mask? Highly unlikely, and on a recreational dive, you should be able to surface without it. In a cave, you might well have a problem.
• Failed computer? Highly unlikely, and on a recreational dive, you should be able to surface without it. On a decompression dive, you could be in serious trouble without a backup.
• Light failure? Highly unlikely, and on a daytime recreational dive, you should be able to surface without it. On a night dive, you should still be able to surface without it, but you could have problems. Better take two. In a cave, you are toast without a light. Better take three.
• Loss of breathing gas because of either not paying attention to gas supply or a regulator failure? Highly unlikely, and on a recreational dive, it would all depend upon how comfortable you feel doing a CESA at the worst moment of your dive. In the open water at 30 feet? No problem. Inside a wreck at 80 feet? Not so good. On a decompression dive or in a cave? You are toast.

its a scaling effect- the smaller the margins for error on a dive ( deep, long, overhead, etc) the more critical it is to have those failures covered. one also has to add the cascading effect that failures have in accident analysis -lose a mask - no big deal is it? but then you cant read your computer or spg easily you cant identify navigational points either. Increase in stress is increase in RMV.

sure solo diving with minimalist gear is great if your doing straightforward dives its horses for courses -one set of rules doesnt cover all scenarios