I've been set free!!! Solo

[Ana]

Been solo diving for years and I love it. However, from experience there are places and times to just not do it in my opinion. It's not that I am afraid to to die, because I am not. I just don't want to put someone else in a position to have come find my dead or lost a$$ or have someone have to tell my wife and her to have to go through the grief of my being stupid.

I will not solo in a cave. I will not solo at night in places that have a current like cozumel, in a thunderstorm. This taught me an important lesson. I took a group down there around 2008 or so and decided I wanted to do a shore night dive from the Casa del Mar beach. I could see lighting off the the northwest it was a long way off, as I could not hear any thunder. Was a good dive, until... The lighting got more frequent and I decided I need to check things out. When I surfaced, it was raining very hard, very windy and the waves had become pretty bad. At that time in my diving it was the worst conditions I had been in. So I took a compass heading to a point I thought was the roof on the Casa del Mar, dropped down and stated heading back. All was good until I came on some pilings to should not have been there. Now is when the demon in my head started having a discussion. Where was I? What am I going to tangled up in? How am I going to get out? Where is that damn cruise ship? At this time I could not see any landmarks because of the sea wall, its around 10:00pm and no one knows I am here. I told that demon to shut up and lets get this figured out. Well the current had not been that bad, when I started the dive but I figured I had been blown to north. What I forgot was there were no other piers just to the north of Casa del Mar. I finally found a ladder and a way out and I was to the south of where I thought I was. I had taken a bearing on a roof the looked like Casa del Mar a good distance off shore in a thunderstorm.

Should have seen face of the security guard when I came walking down the pier and under the lean to. Anyway, solo diving is great and I do enjoy it today. Do it Right and you will "learn and live and live to learn."

We have likes, and thanks, and funny, and some others..... I think we should add another for the "solo" posts .

Something on the lines of:. "Please don't.. you'll wake up the saviours "

 

[Island23]

OK. I'm wearing my asbestos wet suit... and this is supposed to be a no-troll zone. But...

I've been set free!! I LOVE solo diving. LOVE IT!

Mind you, I'm keeping things in perspective, and doing this in a careful, introspective, and well considered manner.

I just spent a week at Coco View resort in Roatan. This is, arguably, one of the easiest places to solo dive. Navigation is shockingly simple. Entry/exit is very easy. Staff and DMs are supportive. It is awesome.

First, let me say I LOVE having a pony bottle. I'm not trying to get a big argument started. I've never run out of air, and I pay close attention to my gas management. However, the pony bottle just feels... safer. I dive as if I don't have it, and try not to change my behavior in any way.

Here is how I solo'd:

1. Guided boat dives, no insta-buddy. Yes, I stayed with the group. Yes, I wasn't really solo. But, I didn't have to worry about keeping track of a buddy. I didn't have to guess about their skill level or strange behaviors. I didn't fret about lingering over a photo too long. In fact, I was often the odd-man-out anyway. I just kept the group in sight and enjoyed the dives.

2. Drop-off dives (no guide), no buddy needed. At Coco View, there are two walls and a wreck. They drop divers for the second tank, and navigating back to the beach is super simple. I go in and take my time, sometimes going along with the group, but able explore at the depths and speeds I want.

3. Shore dives. I am no longer running around searching for someone to go diving with me. As with the drop-off dives, navigation is simple, depths are shallow, and there is a lot to see close to the resort.

In the future, I will use the pony bottle when I can. I may dive solo again, if the conditions and situation warrant it.

That's exactly, what Solo does, sets you free. Congrats on leaving communism

 

[happy-diver]

Yeah the 2018 posts are great, was the Solo forum still closed
and then the 2022 told what to think modified brain kicked in

and then there's communism what are you talking about man