Self Reliant Diving Required?

[scubadude223]

Part of the reason I carry the AL 80 and the AL 40 is for safety but also,

To impress the ladies on the beach

 

[Jack Hammer]

Part of the reason I carry the AL 80 and the AL 40 is for safety but also,

To impress the ladies on the beach

It only impresses them if you stuff it down your shorts...[emoji6]

Sent via

 

[Nemrod]

For my entire diving life there has been a dirty little secret in the sport. There are two basic groups of divers who just about never have a buddy. They are spear hunters and photographers and even when they have a buddy they do not in actuality. Wolf Diving.

N

 

[uncfnp]

Part of the reason I carry the AL 80 and the AL 40 is for safety but also,

To impress the ladies on the beach

FYI. To the ladies on the dive boat, you just look like an air hog.

 

[TN-Steve]

I don't hold the Solo / Self-reliant certification yet. I intend to get the Solo cert at some time in the coming year, mainly because of the depth of knowledge that the course imparts. I don't have any recurring plans for solo diving, but it would be nice to have that capability if the situation arose.

That being said, I already carry a 19cf pony, primarily because while I love my dive buddies, in the event of the worst case scenario I want that ability to be able to implement self-rescue.

I know that there are ISO standards for Open Water / AOW diver that all the certification agencies conform to. Is there an applicable standard for Solo / S-R? (I would be a bit surprised if there was, but then again...)

My pony reg is a Dive Rite 1208 first and a 1215 octo that I got from Ebay, stripped, cleaned and rebuilt. It tests well on the bench, and breaths well underwater. I also make it a habit to, on the last dive of the day / weekend to finish off the dive breathing off the pony. That help keep me familiar with it, helps ingrain the muscle memory, identifies any potential equipment issues before then have a chance to become a problem. I do make sure to tell my buddy(s) what I'm planning to do before we descend, so that it doesn't get them freaked.

And the pony (bailout) is just that. It's NOT part of my gas planning, it's my reserve just in case things get sideways.

And I'm not in split fins while doing it.

Steve

 

[Kharon]

This has been posted before. Perhaps it's time to post it again.

Solo Diving- Coming out of the Closet on Vimeo

 

[DaleC]

It's also good to remember that the "rules" taught in a course are there to protect the diver, new to the activity, until they can gain some actual real world experience.

In OW you are taught to always dive with a buddy, stick to benign conditions, stay above 60', no overheads etc... because, if you follow those rules initially you will probably be safe. As time goes by you expand on experience and the rules change. It's a prudent concept. Telling new divers (to an activity) that they can do as they please may lead to those divers adopting strategies that do not work well based on their current skill level, still unassessed.

Same with self reliant/solo diving. When a diver, unfamiliar with this activity, takes a course they are given some rules. Redundancy, rule of thirds, pony not part of gas plan etc... If the new diver follows those "rules" they will probably be safe until they can gain the experience that tells them what really works for their conditions.

That's why some people, like myself, will say they do not use redundancy in some conditions, have different gas plan strategies and sometimes use ponies as part of the dive plan. I would not suggest this in a basic forum, where the discussion is centered on divers at the entry level but in the advanced arena we should be able to think a little more for ourselves.

Here's an anchor I recently excavated out of a lake bed (silted the bottom to near zero vis) at 60' with lift bags totalling 250lb's break suction (using my pony to inflate) and swimming the rig underwater to the shore. The entry was ok but the exit was a PITA carrying that! It's what I might do solo but I wouldn't suggest teaching it in a course.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I normally ignore your posts, but for some reason I read this one and will respond.

In all courses the primary value of the course is in what you learn. In some cases, the card that comes with it provides no extra value. For example, if you take a specialty course in digital photography, you may learn a tremendous amount in the course, but the card that comes with it provides no real extra value. No one is ever going to stop you from using a camera under water if you don't have that card.

In other cases, the learning is valuable and the card is necessary for certain activities. I have many such cards. If I decide to go cave diving in Ginnie Springs, my Cave Diver card is a requirement, and if I want to use my scooter in the cave, my DPV in an overhead environment card is a requirement. If I want to dive the wreck of the RBJ in south Florida, I will probably need to show my advanced trimix card. If I want to get my decompression bottles filled with oxygen, I will need to show my advanced nitrox card. The tech courses I teach allow divers to go to different depths and uses different decompression gases. They may run into a dive operation that will not check, but the odds are they will have to produce the correct card to do the dive they want to do.

As for solo diving, there are lots of places where you can just show up at the water's edge, put on your gear, and go for a pleasant solo dive. No one will care, and no card will be required. If you are going to go in off a commercial boat, the dive operator will have rules, and those rules may require a card. That is what I meant by my post.

In summary, if you are going to do advanced diving, training and experience is always required, and sometimes a card showing you have that training and experience is required as well.

I have by now done somewhere between 300 and 400 solo dives. A couple years ago I built an entire rock reef by doing quite a number of solo dives ... using a scooter, a 400-lb lift bag, a hammock-sized sling that I built out of PVC pipe and poly-rope, with an AL80 strapped to the frame for both bailout and to inflate the lift bag. I didn't learn to use any of that stuff taking a class ... and yet I probably know more about using those tools and skills than a lot of the instructors you'd take a class from to learn about solo diving.

I don't own a solo card. When the class first started being offered I read the book, and realized that I already knew more about the subject than was in it ... in large part from other classes I'd taken and the subsequent dives I'd done as a result of those classes. That's not to say it isn't a good class ... I think it is very worthwhile for the people who need to learn that stuff ... but before it became commercially available there were plenty of people learning these things on their own, or through mentors, or by applying bits and pieces of what they'd learned in other classes. But despite my experiences, there have been trips I've gone on where ... because I don't have the card ... I was denied access to solo dives that were granted to people with a fraction of my skill and experience, but who had the card. I'll accept that ... their dive op, their rules ... and as their client it's not my place to question them. I just don't see the point in taking a class that won't teach me anything. Thankfully I live in a place where the rules boil down to "you are responsible for planning and executing your own dive" ... and I've never had issues solo diving from anybody's boat, even though some of them prefer you dive with a buddy. I think most of the west coast of North America is like that since I've done solo dives pretty much from the Channel Islands to the north tip of Vancouver Island without any issues ... in some pretty rugged and remote locations.

I guess if I lived someplace where diving generally caters to low-skilled or occasional divers, I might have to get the card ... or give up diving solo ... thankfully that's a choice I don't need to make ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[doctormike]

I don't own a solo card. When the class first started being offered I read the book, and realized that I already knew more about the subject than was in it ...But despite my experiences, there have been trips I've gone on where ... because I don't have the card ... I was denied access to solo dives that were granted to people with a fraction of my skill and experience, but who had the card. I'll accept that ... their dive op, their rules ... and as their client it's not my place to question them

Exactly, their rules. Bob makes the point very well.

The thing is, for almost any type of diving, there is no intrinsic reason why a class offered through an agency with an agency certified instructor and published course materials can teach you thinks that you can't learn on your own. Tech diving, cave diving, wreck diving - for virtually any type of diving you can imagine, there were people doing it long before agencies offered formal training. No one certified Jacques Cousteau.

The reason why some cards (like the solo card) are valuable, is that they certify to some other person who (a) has no idea who you are, and (b) is in some way liable for injuries you may inflict on yourself that at one point you studied this basic course material and passed a test to the satisfaction of an instructor.

So for all the people who don't understand what difference a piece of plastic makes, remember that it's not for you, it's for someone else. And since it's usually the only thing that a dive op can use to assess your skills, it's what they use. Hey, you might have gotten your solo card long ago and have forgotten how to dive altogether. At least, it provides the operator some level of liability protection if they can say that you showed them a card.

 

[mick allein III]

Someone on this thread recommended the book "Scuba Confidential" by Simon Pridmore. Good book thus far. Just came upon a quote that speaks to our original discussion as to whether self reliancy should be the standard,

"Some training agencies now offer Solo Diving courses and these will certainly be valuable in helping you adopt the right mindset to diving on your own. When you think about it, however, there should really be no need to have a specific course: every diver course should be teaching self-sufficiency rather than dependency." (P73)


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