How long did you wait before you started Solo Diving?

[Ana]

If I am driving over the speed limit, it is ok I know what I'm doing. If someone passes me, he is reckless and is going to get kill or kill someone else.

That is the philosophy I see in most of the solo threads.

It goes something like: When I was this many I went solo because of this or that but I don't recommend anyone to do it today, I wouldn't do it today.

To me that translates into: I'm very smart and strong and handsome so it was ok that I did what I did, I have learned from that so I'm here to stop you from doing the same, not only because I have more knowledge than you, but also because there is no way you are half as smart or strong much less handsome.

Seriously if I was in my 20's as a new diver,that would be the message I'd be getting from about 3/4 of the posts in the solo dives threads.

If we really care to send a message about safety to potential solo divers we have to figure a way to stop talking down to them like if we are the exclusive holders of the only truth, specially since we are not.
What is applicable to one solo diver is plain stupid for another.

 

[scuba=dude]

Ana I really like the way you think

 

[DaleC]

I won't get into the nitpicking (because I really don't have a problem with anybody posting) but Ana brings up an interesting idea.

I think the individual shift mirrors a societal shift when it comes to diving. If you will allow me to babble for a moment:
In its inception diving was completely fly by the seat of your pants. There were no (or very few) courses and one just learned by doing. Those who stuck with the sport were probably self sufficient adventurous types by nature. Let's call this the pioneering phase.

Then diving caught on and courses/techniques began to proliferate. Lots of good ideas (and some bad) and excitement. Boundaries were being pushed everywhere. Let's call this the golden age.

Soon there was a large body of knowledge available and divers began seperating the wheat from the chaff. Some ideas stuck around, some went by the wayside. Let's call this the consolidation phase.

In an attempt to mass market/profit from diving, agencies and manufacturers began dumbing down prerequisites, techniques and equipment to the point where people who really shouldn't be diving are now doing so. Let's call this the decline phase.

As the individual diver progresses they also go through these phases themselves (to some degree) though there is no need to hit a decline if one is sensible. Expecting someone who is in the consolidation to (re)relate to the pioneering phase may not be as easy as it sounds. They have learned more since then and can see their mistakes (though it would be nice if they kept a little memory of the thrill of discovery).
Also, not everybody wants to experience the pioneering phase and may in fact be quite afraid/opposed to it. They are thankful that they can jump right into the consolidation phase or may fit into the catagory of those who shouldn't dive but, because of the decline phase, don't know it.

One might better name those phases but the general idea is there.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

there are small island all over the earth that the fishermen use home made "Hookas" and dive for all manner of sea food and they have never had any training for diving and are quite solo in there diving.....they are not from the USA

While it's not an Island, Costa Rica has a history of hookah fishermen. They also have a popular island, especially with researchers; Cocos.

My friend Dick Rutkowski had a contract with the Costa Rican government to train non research or technical trained Cocos researchers. By that I mean when researchers without research diving or technical diving certs applied for permission to research, the government informed them that they had to be at least minimally research diving trained, and referred them to Dicks marine lab as one place to get the required training. Prior to these requirements there were many research diving accidents at Cocos, often due "solo-ish" diving by recently OW certified researchers.

Part of the agreement was Dick supplying and operating a chamber, since the only chambers in CR were abandoned, inoperable US NAVY chambers. CR was so interested in treating it's regularly bent hookah fishermen that it "gifted" Dick with overnight camping privileges on Cocos, something I do not believe any other dive operator has had.

I doubt anyone ever used those privileges, but the point is 3rd world solo hookah fishermen pretty much retire bent, if they are lucky, kind of like many aquarium hunters and black coral divers, even those that buddy up. Recreational solo is not really anything like research, fishing or collecting.

Unfortunately for my retirement plans, the economy and absentee owner problems of operating in NW CR have led to that marine lab's demise.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

I for one only come to these froums that have a "solo" bord so as to get more info about how other SOLO divers are doing there dives......NOT to get told how it's not safe or how it is not this or that. Not one thred can I find of SB that any one is saying How They Dive, rather that they dive solo.

How I solo dive is probably not relevant to the vast majority of SB members asking "how to solo dive" because very few have had the adventurous upbringing I had.

If I skip the 60's and 70's uncertified family j-valve diving, when I finally did PADI OW it was after months of "solo" free diving into the caverns and lava tubes of Tunnels off Kauai's north shore. For the next 8 years I preferred free diving, and there are not many buddies for a breath hold cavern photographer. When I say I have made "thousands" of solo cavern free dives I could just be talking about the last year of those 8 years.

In '00 I decided to find a way to spend more time underwater with my camera. I figured becoming an instructor/guide was the best way for me. I went to Florida and got myself seriously trained. In 3 months I collected badges; PADI AOW, Rescue, DM, Nitrox, OWSI, Specialties (Deep, Naturalist, Navigation, Night, Nitrox, Wreck, Photographer - MSDT Prep), IANTD Blender and Dolphin/Atlantis RB, IANTD Adv Nitrox Instructor (crossover), NSS-CDS Cavern and Intro to Cave.

My first "serious" solo dive was with a rented Draeger Dolphin on the Duane wreck off Key Largo, because the PADI 5-Star IDC Captain told me he wanted that "tech rig" off his boat as soon as we tied off. All but 2 of my 16 RB dives from that boat were solo. I was debriefed by my RB instructor after every trip; including talking about my getting lost at the Benwood wreck, having an OOA on my leaky valve bail out bottle with <100 psi in my diluent bottle (dive after Benwood), and aborting a dive with a screaming headache after "dropping" my unclosed mouthpiece as I climbed the ladder on the previous dive.

Then I moved to a beachfront house on the north shore of Oahu. The interesting photo site off that beach is ~3000 feet off shore. I continued to mostly solo breath hold, but eventually I started using scuba gear.

Even if someone followed the exact same scuba training path I did I would not consider them as ready as I was; I had a prior extreme solo life to draw from as well; including free cliff climbing, backcountry snowboarding, white water rivers, even cross country motorcycling, each with near death and emergency room visits.

I mostly hide my how to's in the 'Ohana, and usually tell readers they should never do what I do!

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/hawaii-ohana/204383-carthaginian-shore.html

Carthaginian 007 - halemano's Photos | SmugMug

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/hawaii-ohana/243718-molokini-kayak-dive.html

Molokini Kayak Dive - halemano's Photos | SmugMug

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/hawaii-ohana/220360-al-below-500-psi-pics.html

Under 500 psi - halemano's Photos | SmugMug

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/solo-divers/328602-solo-scootering.html

80 ft Octo - halemano's Photos | SmugMug

Well, that did require some knowledge of proper search terms (halemano, solo, scooter, kayak, octopus, molokini, carthaginian)

Back when I was using too much red in my post processing I messed up a dive series. The ORF files are locked on a frozen windows hard drive so all I have is the sad web images. Because of that I did not write the story, but I had a manta ray for a dive buddy for over half an hour and we had a very good dive;

Manta Ray Buddy Dive - halemano's Photos | SmugMug

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[scuba=dude]

Pretty much retire bent......can you show some numbers to suport that? Sound like a blanket statment to me

 

[DennisS]

Pretty much retire bent......can you show some numbers to suport that? Sound like a blanket statment to me

Honduran divers operate pretty much the same way

HONDURAS: Death Looms Over Miskito Lobster Divers

Not much in common with a solo recreational diver doing 20-30 foot reef dives.

 

[scuba=dude]

ya it said that 4200 out of 9,000 live and dive with some kind of injrey.....and None have had any training what so ever, so what are you trying to say here? That all divers will face the same % of injery?
On this board alone over 40% have been diving solo from the day they got there c-card and of that %40 most have now over 250 dives doing it. I just dont see how this thread has gotten so overblown. bottom line the diver we dive the way he wants to no matter what anyone on this or any other board thinks.
If your of the mind not to dive solo then pease don't but don't get in the way of those that do, your not showing any one how smart you are by all of your posting about it your only pissing folk's off that don't care what you think.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

ya it said that 4200 out of 9,000 live and dive with some kind of injrey.....and None have had any training what so ever, so what are you trying to say here? That all divers will face the same % of injery?

I think a better question is "what were you trying to say when YOU brought up un-trained 3rd world island subsistence hookah fishermen in this thread about recreational solo scuba diving?"

On this board alone over 40% have been diving solo from the day they got there c-card and of that %40 most have now over 250 dives doing it. I just dont see how this thread has gotten so overblown. bottom line the diver we dive the way he wants to no matter what anyone on this or any other board thinks.

I see it as "over 40% of the respondents to this SB solo forum poll claim to have been doing some kind of solo diving since shortly after their OW cert and in another SB solo forum poll over 40% of responders who claimed to have started solo shortly after OW certification now claim to have made over 250 solo dives of some sort.

Nobody was required to show log books to vote, many of us NEVER vote in the silly polls, the difference between solo in a 20' deep pond or cleaning a hull and soloing a "ghost town", deep wreck or cave is not taken into consideration, and so on...

You have made over 15 posts in this thread, so if we relate overblown to overposting...

If your of the mind not to dive solo then pease don't but don't get in the way of those that do, your not showing any one how smart you are by all of your posting about it your only pissing folk's off that don't care what you think.

When addressing a specific poster it is considered proper form to quote the specific poster so everyone, including the specific poster, can tell who it is you are addressing. Your post I quoted here directly follows a post by DennisS and seems to be speaking to that post, but DennisS had only made that one post so far in this thread, so "all your posting about it" might not be directed at him.

Speaking just for me, when someone whom I don't care what they think posts, it doesn't piss me off unless they are perhaps directly addressing me.

It would help the conversation if you let us know who you were addressing in that last paragraph.

 

[scuba=dude]

well thank you for your input on this matter, I really just don't know what I would have done with out it. I have seen many of your post in the past and hold to my thinking about what you know for sure.