Doing it Solo - DIS?

[Nemrod]

That "alone" quote was not mine, I quoted it and somone else quoted it from me--sorry for the confusion. Alone and solo are synonyms however in this contest.

• What a solo diver is--I have answered that from my viewpoint, other opinions may vary but I don't see how any sort of buddy, niece, daughter, boat mate or spouse in the water with you is anything other than buddy diving if only informaly so.

• Skill level/training needed ---Well, it does not require your local super hero. I think that any fit diver with good swimming skills and familiarity with local conditions is enough. This does not negate the distint possibilty that certain personality types MAY NEVER make a solo diver

• Redundant gas supply---- if and when, I use the rules from the Solo Diver book though I had seen/practiced them well before inclusion in that book. The twice my free dive limit which for me know is thrity feet makes my no redundancy depth at sixty feet. To every rule there are exceptions and in clear and warm water I may go deeper and in frigid low viz I may not venture even ten feet without redundancy. An octapus is not redundancy and serves no useful purpose to the solo diver nor do long hoses. Below sixty feet I generally take a buddy bottle and if very deep then it is doubles with at least a semi isolating manifold, stages as suitable etc.

• Limits to solo diving--the limits are the same as would be any buddy diver with similar training. If your a sport diver then it is 130 feet. If your an advanced diver deeper, longer etc. (BTW, I don't use the PadI terms of tech, recreational, advanced and open water in their PadI context) It seems Dr. Bill uses rebreathers solo at 300 feet, he has the skills and training. I used to sneak out the back door and go diving solo when I was 14. I am still here.

The above are as requested--opinions.

I think that we keep discussing solo diving in terms of buddy diving, octapsus and air sharing and long hoses and limits and all that because all of us were originally trained as buddy divers. It takes years to undo that thinking, never for some. Have you seen those sketch pads that let you zip the page up and it erase everything--well--that is what the potential solo diver needs to do. Sit down and consider every piece of gear, every thing you do and ask why is this good for solo, what is it's purpose, if it serves no purpose get rid of it regardless of what your instructor or PadI says. Stop trying to define solo from the buddy diver perspective and then suddenly things like dragging an octapus around on seven foot hoses seems silly--in the context of solo diving.

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[dugout]

You could look at it from PADI's point of view. If you have not discussed and planed the dive as a "team", you and your "buddy" you are without a buddy and there fore, that would make one solo....

 

[Darnold9999]

Good thread.

Started to consider "solo" when I started carrying a DSLR around while diving. I wasn't paying enough attention to my "buddies" and they weren't patient enough for me so I ended up "solo" anyway. Now certified and occassionally will go out solo.

At this point I will only dive solo where I have been diving with a buddy on a previous dive. I suspect this will change, but for now that is my rule.

I carry a pony. My comfort level solo is about 90 feet. At that depth I can get to the surface CESA, beyond that I doubt that I could do it safely any more. Also am subject to being narked beyond that depth - and could easily get focused into more trouble than I could recover from. The pony is backup and an assist to CESA - if something goes wrong, time to get out of the water, the pony makes it easier and gives a few more options. But if I can't do CESA I am not diving solo - my current rule.

I like drbill's comment re experience. Until you have been in an emergency or two you really don't know how you will react. For me I wouldn't want to be soloing without knowing that I will be perfectly rational all the way up to the point I panic I do have enough experience to know that this will be quite late in the game and only after I have tried everything else I can think of first.

Agree that solo is different than same ocean buddy. I may dive exactly the same way re being responsible for myself, but if there is someone else in the water I am responsible for at least carrying their spare air around, and while I won't admit to the responsibility (the lawyer in me escapes every once in a while) I will take care of a whole lot more if someone gets into trouble.

I am not so sure about the dive different gear config for solo. I dive the same config solo or buddy diving. Carry the pony while buddy diving, long hose and bungied backup while solo. I may change my mind on this, I do prefer to keep it simple and with a camera I am already carrying way too much gear.

These are all evolving rules for me. Don't yet have enough experience solo to be confident about any of them.

 

[Halthron]

I don't want to take my own thread off on a tangent but what was the profile of the dive? An AL80 as a stage bottle seems like a bit much.

It was excessive to be sure but please note that I live in a 3rd world country and even more so than normal, we have to rent what we can get. If the resort only carries 80s, that's what you use. I can call a few days ahead and arrange something specific (and pay, of course) or I can use what they have and as long as I return it unused, they don't charge me.

Why do we keep discussing buddy diving of various sorts and trying to relate it to solo? if I am diving with my neice, newbie or not, I got a buddy and I need to take care of her/him/whoever and vice versa. The rig I would use for that would not be the one I solo with.

IMO, it depends entirely on if you can depend on your buddy to be there if you need them. Because of the wonder a new diver has, especially here, I don't depend on any new diver to have competent buddy skills. This means that for 95% of the dive they are close enough for me to get to in the event of an emergency. The other 5%, they've wandered too far away. While I always try to work on S-drills with new divers, until I'm comfortable with them, I treat those dives as solo dives which means I need both the extra reg as well as all of the extra redundancy involved in true solo diving.

For my strictly solo dives, while the extra reg isn't necessary I continue to use it simply because I don't want to have to be comfortable with two different gear donning systems nor do I want to have assemble/disassemble more than is necessary. Stuff the long hose and wear the bungee necklace and on the off chance I run into an OOA diver I'll have an opportunity for an impromptu S-drill.

 

[Johnoly]

Just my input

• What a solo diver is

Enter the water alone, dive alone, exit alone.

• Skill level/training needed

Panic is the killer - I think it takes atleast 500 dives so you have a chance to experience as many screwups as possible and provide you with the confidence not to panic. I'd throw in a couple of 'near death' incidents as well.

• Redundant gas supply, if and when

Yes on a pony bottle, but tons of other stuff. You should be a gear buying nutt with as many backup systems as your credit card will allow to max out.

• Limits to solo diving

Stupid is a relative term. So is comfort level. If it doesn't feel good, don't do it, and vise-versa.

 

[captain]

Just my input



Enter the water alone, dive alone, exit alone.


Panic is the killer - I think it takes atleast 500 dives so you have a chance to experience as many screwups as possible and provide you with the confidence not to panic. I'd throw in a couple of 'near death' incidents as well.


Yes on a pony bottle, but tons of other stuff. You should be a gear buying nutt with as many backup systems as your credit card will allow to max out.


Stupid is a relative term. So is comfort level. If it doesn't feel good, don't do it, and vise-versa.

Comfort in the water and a reasonable number of dives say 75 to 100. As far as two near death experiences, come on. I have been diving for 45 years both solo and buddy and am yet to have one near death incident. If I had two near death experiences I just might give up diving completely.

Tons of other stuff, please define that. Seeing that the only thing in your profile is solo diver how about sharing your experience and gear configuration for solo. Tell us about your two or more near death incidents.

 

[TomP]

It was excessive to be sure but please note that I live in a 3rd world country and even more so than normal, we have to rent what we can get. If the resort only carries 80s, that's what you use. I can call a few days ahead and arrange something specific (and pay, of course) or I can use what they have and as long as I return it unused, they don't charge me.

Point taken. Part of why I started this thread was so we could present our views and config choices in the context our individual circumstances. Thanks for connecting the dots.

 

[TomP]

My view on the experience necessary is closest to Captain's. There is likely no magic number, but 75 - 100 dives seems like a sufficient number of dives to at least form the basis for a meaningful self-assessment. Mostly you need a credible belief that you'll respond appropriately in an emergency situation. While that belief may, or may not, be validated through a real life emergency, lack of one would no weigh on my decision to dive solo.

 

[shark.byte.usa]

I don't think there is some magic number either. It depends on the individual and their assesment of their own skills and the willingness to accept the increased risk involved. I keep my solo dives shallow (<40', usually around 25-30') at sites I am very familiar with (no pony, yet). I am usually taking pictures/video when I choose to solo and either I don't want responsibilty for a buddy or in past dives my buddy has gotten bored with me and wandered off, whereas I've felt compelled upon this realization to go look/surface for him/her taking away from the enjoyment and escape of diving and adding stress. So I don't put myself or my buddy in that situation anymore I'd rather just solo and accept the sole responsibility of my own actions and forego the responsibility of looking after someone else.

So my definition is enter alone, dive alone, exit alone.

-Garrett

 

[Johnoly]

......Tell us about your two or more near death incidents.

After re-reading it your right, the 'near death' is a little overkill. Lets say a couple of wakeup calls. For me it was before I started carrying a pony and was at 95 feet and working on a lobster hole, getting sand in my octo which would not stop freeflowing and less than adequate psi in my tank. One other of mine was a downpour rain storm that came up suddenly and the commercial boat captain could not find me for over and hour even with SMB.

Tons of other stuff, please define that. .

Captain, you and I both spearfish and hunt. Where I do, we get some fast surface currents and unpredictable storms off of Jupiter Florida. We also have many more sharks than most locations and the bulls enjoy protecting their territory. We all dive different home locations and I extend an invite to you for Jupiter. Some of shore dive, some lake dive, some dive the Rigs, some boat dive, and some tie off the boat rope to their BC, jump off and really solo drift dive.

But TomP asked about limits of solo diving, which could be equipment like you mentioned. Some divers may have more and some may have less. You may dive with a very streamlined setup with just the basics, no jacket bcd, steel 72's, J-Valves, no computer, no nitrox. That is a perfectly good, solid and sound rig for the diving that a person does!

Like I said above, we all dive different conditions, so we all have our different setups. I dive steel LP121's with very healthy fills for lots of bottom gas. Halcyon Back plate and pioneer wing. Now for the backups, I dive the Zeagle 2 color SMB with over pressure valve so it can be shot from depth., the backup to that is a 50lb lift bag that is located behind the BP pad. I dive a pony bottle that slides out of a holder so I can hand it off to a trapped diver or just use myself. I use a dive alert for surface attention. Since I spearfish and we have just a small bull shark problem, most of us wear an electronic shark shield, which when solo, gives a big confidence boost floating around waiting for a pickup with dead fish.

And lastly I dive with an underwater canister that contains a 2 way VHF radio, a splash proof GPS and signal flare, pretty much guarenteeing I'll get found way before someone who doesn't have one.

Captain, I hope I've answered your questions on 'tons of stuff' and I'm clearly a gear nutt. So let me ask you the same.

What Computer do you dive?
What Surface marker do you use?
What redundant air do you have?
What surface audio device do you use?
How do you plan to make contact with a rescue party?

My self rescue canister: