Changing dive op attitudes to "solo"

[Fish&beer]

@FishnBeer
As far as Rainbow Reef Divers, you can opt out of the guide, but I am guessing because you didn't have a buddy, you kind of had to go with the guide.
I have been with them before, but with my kid, so ....
Roll up North to Jupiter and you won't be asked, as long as you look like you know what you are doing :shiner:

Don't get me wrong, I did find that Rainbow Reef was a pleasant and professional operator but diving with a guide is not my cup of tea as I prefer to dive solo. Anyhow if I ever get back to Florida I will surely take up both drrich2 and your recommendations.
Thx
Jerry

 

[AfterDark]

My solution is F the operators. If they don't allow solo don't use them. Or do like I do the rare times I use an operator; go with another solo diver, buddy up and go solo after reaching the bottom. Post dive, claim buddy separation.

 

[uncfnp]

Don't get me wrong, I did find that Rainbow Reef was a pleasant and professional operator but diving with a guide is not my cup of tea as I prefer to dive solo. Anyhow if I ever get back to Florida I will surely take up both drrich2 and your recommendations.
Thx
Jerry

Don't forget about points south of Jupiter as well. Many of the dive boats out of WPB are solo friendly as well. Just do your homework and/or give us a holler.

 

[Michael Guerrero]

My experiences are Southern California and the Florida Panhandle. Solo was allowed both places.

 

[uncfnp]

One problem locally is the dive association (PDRA) that owns the 3 local quarries and the most convenient location to maintain skills specifically prohibits solo.

 

[ozzydamo]

I started diving in New England 15 years ago and there were solo divers everywhere. My favorite was a bloke who dove in 50's gear, double hose reg, J valve, black plate with no buoyancy control device. It's funny, I wound up solo diving in an identical rig only a year later. Anyway, I don't think anything has changed. SCUBA diving from its infancy was a solo diving sport. It wasn't until guidelines were developed that training migrated towards "buddy diving". Solo diving has great advantages and it can be a lot less dangerous because you're not having to keep track of someone else during the dive. People tend to freak out when their "buddy" goes missing and that leads to accidents in of itself. I'd rather teach people how to be good solo divers, reliant on their own skills and abilities, rather then reliant on someone else.

Certification agencie$ $tarted to lobby government to make guideline$. I don't see any cost benefit analysis reports on those guidelines efficacy to prove to me, that the increased safety margin has got anything to do with the guidelines- like most things, a political end justifies their own importance to score votes while making coin.

 

[Bob DBF]

Certification agencie$ $tarted to lobby government to make guideline$. I don't see any cost benefit analysis reports on those guidelines efficacy to prove to me, that the increased safety margin has got anything to do with the guidelines- like most things, a political end justifies their own importance to score votes while making coin.

The "government" in the US has no laws regulating SCUBA diving, with the exception of some dive flag regulations and DOT tank hydro regulations. You do not have to be certified to SCUBA dive, I dove for years without a c-card. Once you deal with dive operations, it is their shop and/or boat and their rules you have to conform to so you can do business with them. Most of their "rules" are made to satisfy their insurer and reduce their costs.

When dive instruction started, the YMCA was involved because their decades of providing excellent swim instruction. They always taught that you should swim with a buddy, so it was a natural progression that diving with a buddy was included and. taught.

There are advantages to buddy diving, but you have to be good at it for it to work. And this is from a solo diver.


Bob
-----------------------------
I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[ozzydamo]

The "government" in the US has no laws regulating SCUBA diving, with the exception of some dive flag regulations and DOT tank hydro regulations. You do not have to be certified to SCUBA dive, I dove for years without a c-card. Once you deal with dive operations, it is their shop and/or boat and their rules you have to conform to so you can do business with them. Most of their "rules" are made to satisfy their insurer and reduce their costs.

When dive instruction started, the YMCA was involved because their decades of providing excellent swim instruction. They always taught that you should swim with a buddy, so it was a natural progression that diving with a buddy was included and. taught.

There are advantages to buddy diving, but you have to be good at it for it to work. And this is from a solo diver.


Bob
-----------------------------
I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

In Australia the laws make it nigh on impossible not too- all but a law against it and you can't SCUBA dive any of the public dams here in QLD even if you have certification.

You "both" have to be aware of buddy systems weakness to make it work at a higher safety level then true solo done by a well experienced diver, so at the level of experience people are left to their own devise after certification, I don't see it as a real safety benefit, more as a confidence booster- which can go south quite rapidly for hasty types(50% of dive fatalities happen before the diver has done over 20 dives).

In Australia there is an official "guideline", even if you're just taking friends private diving in your own boat, if something happened and you couldn't show you're using it's protocols, legally you'd get sued hard by the family of the unfortunate diver. This was done under the work place health and safety laws(taking some of the costs of the insurance industry=more profit for them).

Here you wouldn't get a tank refill from any dive shop unless you are certed. https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/law...-safety-laws/laws-and-legislation/diving-laws

Lots of this goes hand in hand with Quality assurance required for very limited access and tendering of contracts to the largest coral reef in the world- it's basically a way of duopolising the best parts of the barrier reef for the dive charter operators(it kills the employment scene for dive instructors/guides, most on those charter operations are on tiny money and are foreigner usually doing a working holiday-taking jobs off Australian here, so much for safety in that case!), the Manta operation(Singapore) is rumoured to be having a shot at getting permitted to dive the GBR ,see how that goes . Here we got a fee, a levy and tax on everything and more, you would be astounded by the amounts involved, it's a disgrace. It all makes diving very expensive in a place that has so much unrealised diving potential for tourism, eco tourism should be its focus in lot of places here, we are lucky for the low population to have so much unspoilt areas.

Oddly enough, I am glad the QLD GOV. got this done before the TPP is signed!

 

[blatter]

Luckily there are lots of places to dive in Australia that are not in the Queensland jurisdiction. I have never been asked for a cert card to get a fill and diving off charter boats is usually a bit more relaxed/sensible in the southern states. Never heard of anyone being sued after a death from a private boat either. Would be interested to know more about that.

The experience of diving Queensland is often too annoying and expensive for many Australians and most people from the southern states I know tend to go to other countries for tropical diving. Sad as there is great potential for solo diving and more technical divign that is not being realized, in my view.

There are exceptions of course. Mike Ball has allowed allow solo diving for a long time, for example.

 

[Nemrod]

I do not see how PADI dive centers can disallow a particular PADI certification, especially if they actually teach the course. I ran into this on my most recent trip. After pointing this out to them they smugly asked me if I had a pony bottle thinking that they could disallow me on that only to have me to pull it out. At which point they mumbled something and waved their arm at me to which I assumed was an okay? But, once on the boat, prepping my gear, a fine fellow from Germany had neither a buddy nor a solo cert or a pony for that matter so I left the pony bottle and took him as my buddy.

N