Dr. Lecter
Contributor
Fixed that for you. Otherwise, no concerns. Enjoy your buddy dives.
I think this is what's called 'posting below the troll line, Progen
The solo diving movement, a good idea?
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Fixed that for you. Otherwise, no concerns. Enjoy your buddy dives.
I think this is what's called 'posting below the troll line, Progen
'Safe' is a funny word. Imagine ...
Four rock climbiners walk into a bar: Abe, Blake, Chris, and Dave. Dave thinks free solo climbing is 'safe,' but Chris disagrees. Chris thinks free solo climbing is dangerous, but traditional climbing is 'safe'. Blake thinks traditional climbing is dangerous & believes David is a fool for attempting something so stupid as free solo climbing, but Blake believes sport climbing is 'safe'. And then there's Abe. Abe thinks Chris is a fool for attempting traditional climbing & Dave is a madmen for attempting free solo climbing. Abe thinks sport climbing is dangerous, but believes top-rope climbing is 'safe'. Abe, Blake, Chris, and Dave only agree on one thing: they will never scuba dive, its too dangerous!
Point is, 'safety' is really a measure of the relative percieved risk between two activities. A better measure of risk management is 'responsibility.' I have seen responsible divers, and irresponsible divers. I have seen responsible dive teams, and irresponsible dive teams. One advantage of good teamwork is the ability of a dive team to distribute this responsibility among the team members. Of course, this ability to distribute/redistribute responsibilities has helped many teams prevent a diving incident from turning into a diving accident. For example, during a typical team ascent, diver 1 might be responsible for calling decompression stops, diver 2 might be responsible for controling the upline, and diver 3 might be responsible for maintaining team formation. If Diver 2 has an OOG emergency (say the upline wraps around his valve, shutting the regulator off as the team ascends) he can pass the upline to Diver 3, and share gas with Diver 1 as he opens his valve.
But the real key to responsible diving is to use the advatage of good teamwork to AVOID incidents in the first place. With one task per person, this three-diver team has collectively spread the individual tasks of a typical bluewater ascent amongst three brains. With a reduced level of task loading, each diver will posess a higher level of situational awareness than possible should they try to manage all aspects of the ascent alone. This means more situational awareness to spend monitoring their buoyancy control, anticipate changes in the environment, or control equipment. It is very likely that in a dive team with situational awareness to spare, either Diver 1 or Diver 3 would notice the position of the upline around Diver 2's valve, stop the ascent, and resolve the problem .. all without sharing gas.
Four rock climbiners walk into a bar: Abe, Blake, Chris, and Dave. Dave thinks free solo climbing is 'safe,' but Chris disagrees. Chris thinks free solo climbing is dangerous, but traditional climbing is 'safe'. Blake thinks traditional climbing is dangerous & believes David is a fool for attempting something so stupid as free solo climbing, but Blake believes sport climbing is 'safe'. And then there's Abe. Abe thinks Chris is a fool for attempting traditional climbing & Dave is a madmen for attempting free solo climbing. Abe thinks sport climbing is dangerous, but believes top-rope climbing is 'safe'. Abe, Blake, Chris, and Dave only agree on one thing: they will never scuba dive, its too dangerous!
Point is, 'safety' is really a measure of the relative percieved risk between two activities. A better measure of risk management is 'responsibility.' I have seen responsible divers, and irresponsible divers. I have seen responsible dive teams, and irresponsible dive teams. One advantage of good teamwork is the ability of a dive team to distribute this responsibility among the team members. Of course, this ability to distribute/redistribute responsibilities has helped many teams prevent a diving incident from turning into a diving accident. For example, during a typical team ascent, diver 1 might be responsible for calling decompression stops, diver 2 might be responsible for controling the upline, and diver 3 might be responsible for maintaining team formation. If Diver 2 has an OOG emergency (say the upline wraps around his valve, shutting the regulator off as the team ascends) he can pass the upline to Diver 3, and share gas with Diver 1 as he opens his valve.
But the real key to responsible diving is to use the advatage of good teamwork to AVOID incidents in the first place. With one task per person, this three-diver team has collectively spread the individual tasks of a typical bluewater ascent amongst three brains. With a reduced level of task loading, each diver will posess a higher level of situational awareness than possible should they try to manage all aspects of the ascent alone. This means more situational awareness to spend monitoring their buoyancy control, anticipate changes in the environment, or control equipment. It is very likely that in a dive team with situational awareness to spare, either Diver 1 or Diver 3 would notice the position of the upline around Diver 2's valve, stop the ascent, and resolve the problem .. all without sharing gas.
drrich2
Contributor
RakPix:
Since the example you gave mentioned deco. stops, I think it's worth following up to mention that the issue of solo vs. buddy diving is often (but not always) not an 'apples to apples' comparison.
While not all solo divers adhere to SDI Solo course recommendations (e.g.: no pinnacle dives, deco. dives or overhead dives; stay well within your comfort zone), this philosophy is present to some degree with many. So many solo divers confine their solo diving to those dives well within their comfort zone.
And those same divers may undertake more ambitious dives with a buddy.
So, when we compare risk, we're often not talking about the same sort of dive, particularly dives getting into the deco. realm.
Yes, I know some people do solo cave, a guy did a solo of the Andrea Dora on air, etc..., but those dives are way different from what a lot of us do.
TMHeimer dives up to 35 feet deep; I've gone slightly over 100 feet in a local quarry turned dive site. I imagine every solo diver on this forum has his or her own 'personal rules' limiting the dives they'll do solo.
Richard.
Since the example you gave mentioned deco. stops, I think it's worth following up to mention that the issue of solo vs. buddy diving is often (but not always) not an 'apples to apples' comparison.
While not all solo divers adhere to SDI Solo course recommendations (e.g.: no pinnacle dives, deco. dives or overhead dives; stay well within your comfort zone), this philosophy is present to some degree with many. So many solo divers confine their solo diving to those dives well within their comfort zone.
And those same divers may undertake more ambitious dives with a buddy.
So, when we compare risk, we're often not talking about the same sort of dive, particularly dives getting into the deco. realm.
Yes, I know some people do solo cave, a guy did a solo of the Andrea Dora on air, etc..., but those dives are way different from what a lot of us do.
TMHeimer dives up to 35 feet deep; I've gone slightly over 100 feet in a local quarry turned dive site. I imagine every solo diver on this forum has his or her own 'personal rules' limiting the dives they'll do solo.
Richard.
I can say that in the past 2 weeks I scrubbed 2 solo dives due to conditions. Had a buddy been available I would have made the dives without hesitation. When this happens I an often frustrated for having not dived but feel good that I let my judgement prevail and the possibility of dealing with a consequence is gone. My dive gear does not have an UNDO button.
Pete
I think this is what's called 'posting below the troll line, Progen
Ok, I take back the nutters part since I personally am in favour of solo diving just in case you haven't read my posts.
uncfnp:
Since you wrote this with a quote from me above it, I will respond. I believe if you go and look at my posts in this thread, that nowhere have I said that it is wrong to make the choice to dive solo if you want to dive solo. What I said was that, if you were choosing to dive solo because you didn't trust your buddies, that the solution was not solo diving but better buddies, and I used the GUE/DIR world as an example of the fact that it is quite possible to have an entire community of great buddies to dive with.
I do not normally dive solo and would not counsel the majority of people to do it, but having set a few floats in my day (
), I can understand the appeal -- and there ARE those truly driven photographers who intend to spend an entire tank of gas sitting in one place to capture JUST the right moment with a jawfish, and those people probably mostly need to be by themselves, unless they can find a team which is willing to view that photography goal as a project, and simply dive support for it.
Dr. Lecter
Contributor
Ok, I take back the nutters part since I personally am in favour of solo diving just in case you haven't read my posts.
Troll line.
I have just spent a good part of my morning reading this thread along with a 30 min coffee break while the site was down undergoing daily maintenance which is around 11:30 local time for me.
I will throw in my 0.1bar worth
I believe that everyone should have some capability of self reliance, but it comes with years of experience, having been solo diving for almost 20 years now.
I rarely dive without a pony bottle, even if I do have a buddy and my primary rig does not have an octopus, I nearly always carry a camera and my main interest on a dive depends on what lens is fitted, I do like a buddy for my wide angle photography but that is rare where I dive locally with less than 5M visibility.
On my most recent trip to Indonesia I was delighted to find out that I could solo dive on the "house reef" however I did arrange beforehand a pony bottle with DIN fitting and brought with me a suitable harness to side sling the pony as well as an additional regulator that I use with my local pony, which worked well for the one and only solo dive I made during my 10 day stay at that particular resort. All of my other dives were with a guide or with the guide and another couple of divers and photography was the main focus (no pun intended).
I did do the PADI Self Reliant Diver almost a year ago with a very good instructor here in UAE, sharpened up a few skills and I carry all the pre-requisite redundant kit. Most of my dives are to 20/22M but I also solo dive a wreck at 30M which I do with either doubles or a single tank with pony, and sometimes sling an additional stage with EAN50 depending on my plans.
Reminds me of one of last weekend's dives where three of us dived on "Car Cemetery" and barely within vision of each other. My friend Iyad was busy with a blenny for the whole dive of 75 mins, Burhan I believe was also totally absorbed with a blenny, while I was lucky to spend most of the dive with some cleaner shrimp and a nudibranch laying eggs shooting super macro. A buddy with any of us would have been bored senseless and probably have stirred up silt as this was a pure muck dive.
I will throw in my 0.1bar worth
I believe that everyone should have some capability of self reliance, but it comes with years of experience, having been solo diving for almost 20 years now.
I rarely dive without a pony bottle, even if I do have a buddy and my primary rig does not have an octopus, I nearly always carry a camera and my main interest on a dive depends on what lens is fitted, I do like a buddy for my wide angle photography but that is rare where I dive locally with less than 5M visibility.
On my most recent trip to Indonesia I was delighted to find out that I could solo dive on the "house reef" however I did arrange beforehand a pony bottle with DIN fitting and brought with me a suitable harness to side sling the pony as well as an additional regulator that I use with my local pony, which worked well for the one and only solo dive I made during my 10 day stay at that particular resort. All of my other dives were with a guide or with the guide and another couple of divers and photography was the main focus (no pun intended).
I did do the PADI Self Reliant Diver almost a year ago with a very good instructor here in UAE, sharpened up a few skills and I carry all the pre-requisite redundant kit. Most of my dives are to 20/22M but I also solo dive a wreck at 30M which I do with either doubles or a single tank with pony, and sometimes sling an additional stage with EAN50 depending on my plans.
Reminds me of one of last weekend's dives where three of us dived on "Car Cemetery" and barely within vision of each other. My friend Iyad was busy with a blenny for the whole dive of 75 mins, Burhan I believe was also totally absorbed with a blenny, while I was lucky to spend most of the dive with some cleaner shrimp and a nudibranch laying eggs shooting super macro. A buddy with any of us would have been bored senseless and probably have stirred up silt as this was a pure muck dive.
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Kharon
Contributor
Actually, they didin't sensationalize it a bit. They treated it very low key and as something normal but to be thouroughly prepared for. I guess the sensation was my phrasing.
The circumantartic ocean is noted for drastic weather changes that occur extremely rapidly. Very heavy storms can arise unpredictably over the course of a few minutes. The current (and air currents) travel around antartica with no breaks - someting like 1800 miles of continuous buildup. Many, many shipwrecks even today.
It was a scientific expedition, probably with limited funding. Finding a scientist with the background necessary and with the diving qualifications necessary might not be as easy as finding a "buddy". I'm sure the dive was always planned as a solo and I don't think it was especially dangerous - unless the weather turned. In that case they still had communication to get Paul to abort safely.
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