If I were a solo diver...

[RockPile]

Sure, anything that can keep you under. Mono, rope, webbing and wire. Wire is a particularly nasty hazard in some of its forms and can be awfully tough to cut.

JB

 

[wheelietaco]

I have dive solo more then with a buddy. I have redundant air supply. Plan my dive, DIVE THE PLAN. keep up skills of removing bc, keep a cutting tool, and If deeper the 35ft, have a reel to an up line. I Plan my dives short and have someone on shore or in a boat keep an eye on where I am. If you feel comfortable enough go for it. I live where the viz is 5 ft on a good day so with a buddy it is just more of a pain the butt.

 

[thomjinx]

Solo diving is risky only to the diver doing it. No other person is at risk. What's the big deal?

Thomjinx

 

[RockPile]

I agree, pretty much. The big deal is that good, conscientious divers don’t live in a vacuum (definitely not when they post in here!).

If people in a position of "know" don't explain fully the risks, a premature diver might think he or she is ready to dive solo. I’m convinced that some of this inflated angst towards going it alone serves to dissuade those that really need to be disabused of the fantasy. I think the general feeling is that when you actually find someone asking if they're ready, they most certainly are not and, at least around here, get the business end of a lecture. And I don’t really have a problem with those impromptu flames (although the periodic paranoid or inciting thread topics get a little annoying).

A good example (and I couldn’t, for the life of me, find the link) is a thread where 16-year-old kid with a variety of strange problems, lying among them, was declaring himself ready to take on solo diving up North. He was absolutely lambasted for that declaration by a cast of the usual suspects. That’s a good example of why such a big deal is and ought to be made about the form.

JB

 

[Cacia]

In general, I would say you should have a few hundred dives at the very least. Until then, you just cannot foresee and anticipate what the most likely dangers are.

It is true though, that there are always people (yes, usually men) who like to live life like it is all one big audition for "Jackass".

 

[JeffG]

It is true though, that there are always people (yes, usually men) who like to live life like it is all one big audition for "Jackass".

Yep. I went to do the toy car bit.

 

[BCS]

Solo diving is risky only to the diver doing it. No other person is at risk. What's the big deal?

Thomjinx

Unless the recovery team divers get killed trying to recover the body.
There's more than one family of a recovery team diver that has died while recovering a solo diver body that would argue the idea that solo divers are the only party incurring risk while partaking in solo diving.

Best,
brandon

 

[CIBDiving]

Yep. And just as worth reading now as it was back then.... especially the first post!
Thanks to the shark who resurrected it

Bull Pucky!! It's as much gobbldy gook then as it is now.

 

[Lightning Fish]

...
If you assume, for example, that the first stage o-ring fails one time in a thousand (I'm quite sure it's rarer than that, but let's use the number for simplicity). If you have two first stages with o-rings, you have not quite twice the chance of an o-ring failure. But the chance of BOTH o-rings failing is one in a million.
...

Bingo! Simple rules of probability.

I would be interested in a more indepth explanation from UP to see his reasoning.

Bill.

 

[sea nmf]

I haven't heard a valid response on either side yet.

Why don't you all pony up the money like I did and get that new fangled gill implant. Now I don't have any of that heavy gear. I wear my mask, fins and carry a sandwich in a fannypack all while diving to any depth I want for as long as I want.

If only . . . . . (sigh)