Strongly considering solo diving - lets talk

[archman]

I know several people that have solo'd quite a bit. When you're trying to do research or photography, it often gets very difficult to find competent buddies that will twiddle their thumbs while you sit and stare at some hole in the sand for half an hour or more waiting for some fish to MAYBE come out. I'd say a major fraction of shallow water research has been done by solo divers. Apparently they survived, as evidenced by their publishings. I do it too when I can't sucker somebody into picking seaweed. I've been on a few survey dives where several people went down onto the reef and immediately separated to each "do their own thing." We only met up at the safety stop, if at all.

Now for deep, penetration or so dives, well the buddy factor gets attractive real quick. I've never gone solo deeper than 10 meters.

I remember reading an article about solo diving recently, either in Rodale's, Skindiver, or AlertDiver. The author was advocating it in certain cases, most notably the "incompetent buddy" situation.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Diving solo is a known risk as opposed to diving with the buddy of circumstance.

Almost all of my diving used to be solo. Things have changed and now I dive with a buddy.

When I am diving with a good buddy I enjoy myself more and I'm no doubt safer than solo should the unexpected occur.

However when I am diving with a sub-standard buddy, as I do occassionally, I am keenly aware that I am not as safe as I would be if I were solo.

Buddy diving isn't without its hazards. Solo diving isn't without its hazards either.

If I were diving solo these days I would carry all of my gas in one cylinder, dive no deeper than I could comfortably do a ESA and I would stay well within the NDL. I would also make sure that the dive site was without difficult entry/exit, current or entanglement hazards such as fishing line.

 

[Mo2vation]

If I were diving solo these days I would carry all of my gas in one cylinder...

I couldn't find it the last week or so in searching, but I seem to remember a thread from long ago where you talked about the whole multiple O-ring risk and made a pretty compelling arguement for single tank solo diving. If you stumble on that thread, I'd love to read through it again.

Thx -

k

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Risk is a relative thing. All my exciting moments and "Gosh that could have killed me" experiences while diving have been buddy induced. In a lot of situations I actually feel safer solo. I enjoy buddy diving only when I am diving with an equally compentent buddy that I fully trust, and that list is incredibly short.

 

[Uncle Pug]

I seem to remember a thread from long ago

..
have fun.

 

[queentrigger]

Sometimes I do end up diving solo, but I do not dig the complicated equipment configurations. I dive simple and keep my eqiupment simple. Single tank only. Love to hang out at the edge of a reef, and look out into oblivion. Beautiful things do happen sometimes.

 

[Walter]

Lots of folks dive solo. I happen to be one. I never recommend the practice. For most people, it is extremely dangerous. You either have the skills and knowledge to dive solo or you don't. If you do, there's no reason to discuss it. If you aren't sure, you don't. Discussing the issue in a public forum merely results in encouraging others to adopt the practice. Most of the divers out there need to dive with a DM holding their hand, we don't want them thinking about going alone.

 

[DORSETBOY]

Ive dived solo inbetween teaching and loved it, purely because of the oppurtunity it gave to do my own thing within my own limits. Out of choice I would want to dive with a pony as a minimum but that is purely because I don own and have never used a twin rig. If i were to be solo diving in anything less than excellent conditions and shallow water I would want to have trained on and be using a twin rig just for the greater redundancy.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Like anythin else it's a choice.

You already know that when you're alone there isn't any way to have a redundant brain, pair of eyes or hands when alone and that can be a big deal if there's a problem. One crowd I'm accossiated with does lots of solo diving. They're all sump explorers and solo is the order of the day. I've done some support diving for them. I used to like to dive alone. In fact my first ever scuba dive was alone. Actually so was my second. The more experience I get the less inclined I am to do it though. Luckily my two favorite buddies are my wife and son. For the kind of diving I do and the places I dive I never have trouble finding some one to dive with.

As for the earlier comment about instructors diving solo...That's why students don't learn to buddy dive and the rest of you can't find good buddies on the road. The instructor dives alone in class and the students follow. When I teach I have a buddy. Also if my students aren't able to be a good buddy (though lacking experience) I don't take them to open water. Instructors won't be able to teach buddy diving until they learn it and none of the classes they took teach it or teach them how to teach it.

 

[DORSETBOY]

Fair point Mike, I did speak to a techie diver earlier in the year who said that she will never dive with a budy again after bad experiences of buddies wandering off and not knowing what to do etc.
I take your point though that you can have redundancies for pretty much everything, but without a buddy there's only one set of eyes etc.