Is Solo diving a category of Technical diving?

[jerseybones]

It cant be Tech Diving 'cause then how would we have Solo-Technical Diving!LOL Seriously I have been soloing for years, it took a good bit of conventional buddy-diving to get to the point where I "knew" I was ready to go solo and be as safe as possible while going it alone. Diving is not for everyone, Solo Diving is for even less. Imho an experienced diver will "know" if he is ready for soloing,he will be confident in his skills and the extra equipment needed to solo with minimum risk, If you need to ask someone else if you are ready to go it alone...you have answered your own question

 

[bluemagoo]

I would consider soloing to be tech-diving in about the same sense as caving and I suspect that instruction will evolve much as it did for caving -- from a dark art to open, regulated instruction to stop more avoidable tragedy. To me, the main difficulty is that soloing is not just about measurable/quantifiable physical ability or intelligence or watermanship or equipment knowledge, it's also about intangibles such as character and abilities under intense stress.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I believe that solo diving is a form of technical diving. As with other forms of technical diving it has it's degrees of level and difficulty. The reason that I think that it is technical in the first place is that there is no room for error - none at all. A buddy system allows for a few mistakes - solo diving doesn't.

I disagree with the basic premise here, in that there is room for error in solo scuba diving. You have time, and air, so you can figure things out. If this quote were about solo breath-hold diving, then I would agree (see my discussion on this on my thread about my thoughts on solo diving).

I've been solo diving since the...well, before some of you were around I've made plenty of mistakes both buddy diving and solo diving. I've gotten in more trouble buddy diving than solo diving. We've got to realize that anytime we're over about 25 feet from our "buddy," no matter the visibility, we are actually solo diving (closer if the visibility is poor). I've had fins come off while solo diving, regulators leak water, cameras malfunction, lines get tangled, etc., without problems while solo diving. The reason is that there was air to breath, and time to deal with these problems.

In fact, I set up a special section of my dive log and called it "Special Problems and Solutions." This is because each dive, something goes wrong that we can learn from. Diving is a complex activity, and if we stop learning and go only by what someone else tells us is right, we stop learning. There is a term for this kind of learning--"experience." With experience we gain insight into problems that beginners don't perceive. This is why solo diving should be a part of the diving discussion. Pilots "solo" as a part of their training. If they cannot solo, they cannot receive their pilot's license. That should be considered by our scuba training organizations.

SeaRat

 

[MikeFerrara]

Pilots "solo" as a part of their training. If they cannot solo, they cannot receive their pilot's license. That should be considered by our scuba training organizations.

SeaRat

Yes but pilots also spend at least 40 hours in the air before getting a license. They are tested by an independant examiner. They practice various emergency responses under real flying conditions. They don't get to kneel. LOL. No one talls them not to worry about their buoyancy control because they'll get it with experience. They have to demonstrate that they can control the plan while doing other tasks like communication, navigation and recalculating the flight plan if required.

Divers on the other hand are often given a card after a very minimal course that barely adequate to get them by on a vacation dive with a DM to supervise them. They are given their card after demonstrating a few simple skills while kneeling on the bottom. They often aren't even required to demenstrate that they can plan and conduct a dive with a buddy (never mind alone). They just have to show that they can follow the instructor.


Then...they want to solo dive.

 

[jbd]

Yes but pilots also spend at least 40 hours in the air before getting a license. They are tested by an independant examiner. They practice various emergency responses under real flying conditions. They don't get to kneel. LOL. No one talls them not to worry about their buoyancy control because they'll get it with experience. They have to demonstrate that they can control the plan while doing other tasks like communication, navigation and recalculating the flight plan if required.

IIRC the average is around 60 hours of training before getting the flight cert.

Divers on the other hand are often given a card after a very minimal course that barely adequate to get them by on a vacation dive with a DM to supervise them. They are given their card after demonstrating a few simple skills while kneeling on the bottom. They often aren't even required to demenstrate that they can plan and conduct a dive with a buddy (never mind alone). They just have to show that they can follow the instructor.


Then...they want to solo dive.

I would like to see the look on someones face when they were told something like,--NAUI(to use my own agency) requires 20 hours of training but it will probably take another 10 or 12 hours beyond that before you are actually ready to dive. BTW the training is $30/hour plus the cost of gear rental and educational materials.

 

[FreeFloat]

I believe that solo diving is a form of technical diving. As with other forms of technical diving it has it's degrees of level and difficulty. The reason that I think that it is technical in the first place is that there is no room for error - none at all. A buddy system allows for a few mistakes - solo diving doesn't.

I second what he said.

I figure that just as in technical diving, the solo diver must be prepared to plan out every detail of the dive as well as solve all situations that may arise. Sounds very technical to me.

As my open water instructor said (repeatedly) "diving is a Control sport" and I believe this goes at least DOUBLE for technical and Solo diving as well.

 

[MikeFerrara]

IIRC the average is around 60 hours of training before getting the flight cert.

Yes. I was just quoting the minimum required by the FAA not the amount of flight time it actually taked most people to get signed off.

I would like to see the look on someones face when they were told something like,--NAUI(to use my own agency) requires 20 hours of training but it will probably take another 10 or 12 hours beyond that before you are actually ready to dive. BTW the training is $30/hour plus the cost of gear rental and educational materials.

Gear rented by the hour of course just like a plane. LOL

 

[bluemagoo]

Although I would agree that getting and maintaining a PPL (private pilot license) may be the ideal model for creating a recognized sport of solo diving, I find it difficult to imagine how it could be regulated as tightly. It seems that soloing is an "outlaw" variant, as is the people who do it; i.e. in the sense of being independent self-sufficient spirits. I don't see any way to practically enforce any rules or regs on soloing -- there's nothing to identify a diver as a soloist except when his entry/exit is observed.

On the other hand, I think that the structure of instruction leading to a PPL definitely would apply to designing a course for solo diving. The planning, preflight, skills examination, physics, management (cockpit, consumables, emergencies), situational awareness, and on and on, would have their equivalents for solo diving. Further, the restrictions placed on PPL type and rating may also translate into soloing types and ratings. But again, the main obstacle to making this all happen is the outlaw spirit -- flying a plane means sharing the airways and airfields (even for bush pilots); I don't see the equivalent in diving.

 

[Nemrod]

I am a pilot with Instrument and Commerical ratings. I do not find this a good analogy. The level of training and recurrency that goes into maintaining the currency requirments is daunting much less getting the license to begin with--holy cow. I have flown solo, many, many times, mostly solo in fact even in cloud. It is certainly less challenging to have another person along and even if they are not a pilot they can help with charts etc (wife is my best buddy anyway).
I do not think Solo is technical, I think it is routine save for not being recognized by many agencies, dive shops, charter boats, cattle boats. I believe there is room to make mistakes but if you have a well thought out approach and some redundancy the mistakes are just bumps in the road.
Solo diving, though many have done it for years, is a NEW facet to recreational diving. Because of this we find problems with acceptance and many arguments over the type of gear, experience required and all that. Our biggest battle is the ingrained buddy system mentality. I don't want to seem macho--far from it--but the buddy system has it's own serious flaws--no two buddies are equal all the time. If two buddies who are weak swimmers, neophyte divers, and just a bit over confident then you have two mistakes in the water and not just one. The DIR folks are dead agaisnt Solo it seems but they have some excellent ideas and seem to enforce a fairly rigid set of rules concerning equipment and philosophy. I think what Solo diving needs to become accepted is something similar, a guru like Hogarthianism/DIR have who is beyond reproach and who sets some guidelines. No one lives alone and without social interaction. If Solo divers had a recognizeable philosophy and we began to adhere to a set of --dare I say rules---but some type of code I think it would lead to greater safety.
I know there is a book out there on Solo diving, does anyone know where to get it and any other info? Thanks. N

 

[bluemagoo]

The only book I've seen specifically titled with solo diving is by Robert Von Maier. Amazon lists it. I've thumbed through it at a bigbox store and it didn't strike me as being so much instructional nor technical as a good portion of it seemed to consist of experiences and testimonials, some by notable names.