How do you feel about solo diving?

[MikeFerrara]

Genesis,
Aside from medical problems like heart attacks what are the most common problems reported in dives that result in injury or death?

BTW, I am not in your diving I don't care if you solo dive. I am not a hypocrite because I cave dive. I don't promote cave diving just like I don't promote solo diving. I think both are beyond the scope of most recreational diving.

Lets face it. Any of us may have a medical problem and a buddy may not save us. You may not be able to save your buddy. I don't see that as a pro or con to solo diving. There are other and (I,ll check the DAN report this afterneoon) I think more significant causes of injury that a competant budy will be a great help. I any case If my buddies colesterol gets him while he is on a dive with me it won't get me too. In recreational diving this won't be much of a risk at all to me. So are the chances of a heart attack in the group doubled because there are two of us? ok. So what? Where are all the dual fatalities? Yes there have been some but pick a specific one and les see what we can conslude from it.

You seem to always miss my point. I think you do it on purpose. Divers will solo. They always have. It is a personal choice. IMO the problem is when someone applies false logic like it's ok because pilots fly alone in an apparant attempt to justify the practice I think it's dangerous and I'll speak against it. I warn all my students about arguments like that.

I would really like to see a single instance of good team diving increasing danger or decreasing the likelyhood of a favorable outcome in a recreational context.

Poorly executed team diving isn't very safe. The answer isn't solo diving it's better team diving. Team breakdowns in my experience are usually caused by poor basic skills and awareness. Here solo isn't the answer.

Now if a diver dives alone because they want to. ok But I have never seen a reasonable safety argument. In fact I would go so far as to say that the only real justification for solo is because one wants to. Every other argument falls apart fast.

 

[Genesis]

I think not.

I'm not trying to "justify" anything. I am, however, pointing out the parallels between diving and other consensual, "because I want to" activities, such as general aviation.

An awful lot of people fly because they like to. They don't do it for business purposes. They just like being in the air. Kinda like I enjoy being underwater.

Now if a diver dives alone because they want to. ok But I have never seen a reasonable safety argument. In fact I would go so far as to say that the only real justification for solo is because one wants to. Every other argument falls apart fast.

So what?

Why do you dive Mike? Because you want to, right?

The issue under discussion is, I think, how we feel about Solo Diving.

I disagree that the safety argument holds much water or weight in a recreational, no-overhead environment in either direction, given good watermanship skills.

Without those skills, you're a poor buddy - so the argument that one compensates for poor watermanship by having a buddy is false, as a poor buddy may actually endanger you rather than help!

Is the extra pair of eyes, hands, and an extra brain helpful? Absolutely, provided that the extras are competent. If they're not, then they may increase rather than decrease your risk.

Diving is, inherently, a pretty darn safe activity. Only about 100 people die a year doing it. You are four times more likely to be killed driving to the boat than diving. If diving solo doubles your risk of dying, then you're STILL twice as likely to get killed driving to the boat or dive site!

For something that has a risk of death that is one quarter of that which I accept in operating a motor vehicle, I argue that any "safety" argument is about semantics and pushing agency positions, not truth.

Never mind that I am of the opinion that if one wants to engage in an activity that might result in one's death, one has the absolute right to do so. Why? Because if we do not have the right to punch our own ticket then none of the other rights we claim to "protect" and "honor" mean anything at all. And before one says "well but it will affect others", I say "I still support your right to check out." Why? Go back and read the above - this is a private, personal matter and the criteria that goes into a personal assessment of acceptable risk for you and those who consent to be around and with you is simply none of my damn business!

 

[Scuba]

Is the increased risk taken by an experienced, well trained and equipped solo diver, greater, lesser, or fairly comparable to the increased risk taken by an experienced, well trained and equipped buddy team, when diving wrecks, caves, deep?

I suspect at present there may be no conclusive answer to this question supported by existing data. At any rate it is a personal choice how much risk and in which activities we wish to take these risks.

If we look at solo diving as we look at the various types of tech diving, instead of an activity not to be practiced because of the increase in risk, I think we may find another category of tech diving instead of one to be shunned and prohibited because it is deemed wreckless, as some think.

Tech diving, with its greater inherent risk level than rec diving, is readily accepted by some, yet many of these same divers who deem as acceptable the greater risk they see in wreck diving than cave or deep, find solo diving as inherently unsafe.

I think some of this has to do with the desire to make every activity as safe as possible. Having a competent buddy would be overall safer than solo.

While the solo divers may compare the increase in risk to tech.

Two good points, equally valid.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I can agree with much of what scuba said. Here is something else to think about. When I teach a class I teach team diving. I don't address solo dive planning, equipment or emergency procedures. After my class a student may just read a piece in Rodale's telling them how much safer solo is and how much less legal liability there is. Maybe they decide to go do it. Are they prepared?

Maybe they also read about this new Mickey Mouse solo cert. Two dives. A sparr air counts as redundancy. If I took the class I would show up with about a dozen of them on an ammo belt thing slung accross my chest. Hey, they also let you use independant or manifolded doubles. I know some instructors who teach this class and they have never worn a set of doubles. Although they do now dive with a silly little pony and a third reg strapped to them. Sorry but I think it's a real joke. I think I'll go take the class. I'll show up to class with two 104's, bands and a manifold and ask my instructor to help set it up. Do they do the dives solo? How does the instructor evaluate them? If the instructor goes with then do they get the cert never having dived solo? The very nature of the class defies all logic.

I had an instructor from California call and ask me what to do about the fact that when the alternate is routed from the left the second stage is upside down. I almost soiled myself. I don't mean to make fun of someone for asking a question but he was setting up equipment for a student.

Here is how out of hand things have gotten. There is a quarry where I take some of my classes. I have dived there for a long time. The quarry is run by the shop where I did my entry level training. They jumped on this solo diver band wagon and have two instructors teaching the class. Last year while I was teaching my float deflated. I started to head out to retrieve it (on the surface). They informed me that only certified solo divers with a pony could enter the water alone. BTW I was wearing manifolded doubles and I have real training in using them. The entire thing is marketing BS and someone is going to get hurt who would not have if we just did a good job of teaching team diving.

 

[Jarhead]

I feel that discussions and arguments about solo diving make about as much sense as discussions and arguments about mandatory seatbelt laws.
I can't make anyone wear a seatbelt.
I can't make anyone dive with a buddy.

Can you?

Jarhead

 

[MikeFerrara]

Jarhead once bubbled...
I feel that discussions and arguments about solo diving make about as much sense as discussions and arguments about mandatory seatbelt laws.
I can't make anyone wear a seatbelt.
I can't make anyone dive with a buddy.

Can you?

Jarhead

No and I don't want to. I would like to convince some agencies, magazines and shops that they are wrong for promoting it though. I know how about a no-seatbelt driving class. We could train drivers in avoiding tickets like this cert gets a boat DM to let you go alone. We could teach techniques for landing on the roadway to minimize injury. In the place of a solo divers pony we could have a butt pad and a helmet.

As a way of justifying the class we could say that drivers were going to drive without a seatbelt no matter what so we might as well train them to do it right. That is what they said about this class.

I love it. Instead of teaching them to dive the way we always told them they should we make them pay for the privilage of doing it the other way. And now we have a market for rental pony bottles in quarries.

 

[Jarhead]

You keep teaching the correct way to do things.

Solo Divers keep diving the way they already do. (They didn't ask permission before and they aren't going to pay someone to let them do what they are already doing).

Everyone ignores the solo diving class and it eventually goes away due to a lack of interest.

Jarhead

 

[Scuba]

Poor solo diving classes are no more a reason to do away with solo diving than poor BOW classes are a reason to do away with diving. There is another choice.

Driving without a seatbelt. OK. (but relatively slow) How would you compare this to driving 150 mph with a seatbelt.

Different comparisons give us a different perspective.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Jarhead once bubbled...
You keep teaching the correct way to do things.

Solo Divers keep diving the way they already do. (They didn't ask permission before and they aren't going to pay someone to let them do what they are already doing).

Everyone ignores the solo diving class and it eventually goes away due to a lack of interest.

Jarhead

Does that mean you don't want to take the no-seatbelt class? What you say make sense of course but it isn't much fun.

 

[Jarhead]

Scuba once bubbled...
Poor solo diving classes are no more a reason to do away with solo diving than poor BOW classes are a reason to do away with diving. There is another choice.

Driving without a seatbelt. OK. (but relatively slow) How would you compare this to driving 150 mph with a seatbelt.

Different comparisons give us a different perspective.