Bert van den Berg
Contributor
The second reason was being buddied up with a photographer.
Has now happened twice. The second time I had no idea it was going to happen until the buddy jumped into the water with the camera.
Thinking back, what caused you to go solo?
- Thread starter lowviz
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The second reason was being buddied up with a photographer.
Has now happened twice. The second time I had no idea it was going to happen until the buddy jumped into the water with the camera.
EFX
Contributor
I got solo certified to give me more options for diving. If I couldn't find a buddy I would still go diving. Also, I could spend more time working on individual skills without a buddy.
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The only time I go solo is when there are no available buddies. If you think this isn't a thing, then please let me know your interest, capacity, and training in:
Take a minimum week off work and camp, prime summer season only
4WD vehicle just to get close to the cave
Hike gear in several kilometers, high level of fitness with minimal physical/medical impairments (especially no diabetes etc)
Vertical rope experience dry caving to get down to the dive site
Dive 3 to 7C water
Full cave with experience surveying
Drysuit, suit heat mandatory
Sidemount CCR
Trimix
And ideally you have some legit skill to offer the team and aren't just a warm body that happens to have the time, money, and minimum skills to do the dives. Video, camera, and digital map making are all bonuses.
And there's is a very real possibility you will do all of that and have no dive at all until the following summer or even years later.
Take a minimum week off work and camp, prime summer season only
4WD vehicle just to get close to the cave
Hike gear in several kilometers, high level of fitness with minimal physical/medical impairments (especially no diabetes etc)
Vertical rope experience dry caving to get down to the dive site
Dive 3 to 7C water
Full cave with experience surveying
Drysuit, suit heat mandatory
Sidemount CCR
Trimix
And ideally you have some legit skill to offer the team and aren't just a warm body that happens to have the time, money, and minimum skills to do the dives. Video, camera, and digital map making are all bonuses.
And there's is a very real possibility you will do all of that and have no dive at all until the following summer or even years later.
I'm trying to practice restraint of pen and tongue...but I can't. I got assimilated into solo diving by the ocean. After I spent some time under water I got this "sense", it invited and welcomed me. I wasn't afraid and I wasn't narc'd..lol. But I've been that too.
Part of what scared me into solo diving were new advanced divers on boats announcing they wanted a buddy and were "advanced". Fortunately they would asked me , I would say I'm just an open water diver. I used that line for over 10 years.
I got into wreck diving( and deep wreck diving 200+feet) and had two buddies. We dove so many times together we knew everything about the other. I trusted them implicitly with my life and they with me with theirs. I knew their equipment like I knew mine. I knew their air consumption rates, deco obligation and which one of us was buying dinner.
I started diving solo off a boat in San Diego where the DM when going over the protocols simply stated you were welcome to dive solo if you had the training, skills and experience to do so. He would then say; "If you dont know what that training, those skills and experience are, you don't have them". On my first solo dive on the Ruby E off San Diego I knew I had all of them. I feel right at home in the ocean. I know my equipment and know how to use all of it or even just parts of it to make every dive I do a safe one.
I completely get why divers end up soloing to avoid the cluster F..... I understand the benefit to an underwater photographer who just wants to stay in one spot for their whole dive to film a nudibranch. There are a lot of reasons to want to and to dive solo. I feel its a personal choice.
But a tried and true way to dive solo is simply to have a better air consumption rate than who ever you get partnered with. When the other diver/s want to do the air check 20-30 minutes in and indicate they need to go up, if I don't need or want to go, I wave them up and continue on till I'm done.....Truth of the matter is: we all dive solo even if with others.
Part of what scared me into solo diving were new advanced divers on boats announcing they wanted a buddy and were "advanced". Fortunately they would asked me , I would say I'm just an open water diver. I used that line for over 10 years.
I got into wreck diving( and deep wreck diving 200+feet) and had two buddies. We dove so many times together we knew everything about the other. I trusted them implicitly with my life and they with me with theirs. I knew their equipment like I knew mine. I knew their air consumption rates, deco obligation and which one of us was buying dinner.
I started diving solo off a boat in San Diego where the DM when going over the protocols simply stated you were welcome to dive solo if you had the training, skills and experience to do so. He would then say; "If you dont know what that training, those skills and experience are, you don't have them". On my first solo dive on the Ruby E off San Diego I knew I had all of them. I feel right at home in the ocean. I know my equipment and know how to use all of it or even just parts of it to make every dive I do a safe one.
I completely get why divers end up soloing to avoid the cluster F..... I understand the benefit to an underwater photographer who just wants to stay in one spot for their whole dive to film a nudibranch. There are a lot of reasons to want to and to dive solo. I feel its a personal choice.
But a tried and true way to dive solo is simply to have a better air consumption rate than who ever you get partnered with. When the other diver/s want to do the air check 20-30 minutes in and indicate they need to go up, if I don't need or want to go, I wave them up and continue on till I'm done.....Truth of the matter is: we all dive solo even if with others.
There are times a photographer is the perfect dive buddy, you let them do their thing, spend 15min taking the perfect shot of a nudibranch [or whatever takes their fancy], and some dive like one [slug], and most times meet them on the ascent line or deco, all is good.The second reason was being buddied up with a photographer.
Has now happened twice. The second time I had no idea it was going to happen until the buddy jumped into the water with the camera.
Edit: Ha, above post beat me to it.
MichaelMc
Working toward Cenotes
I wanted redundancy that I could count on.
I had moved out of my AAUS scientific diving into some citizen scientist work underwater and the training and buddy discipline was not the same. That got me into the first steps of a pony and a solo mindset which lead to sidemount as my default setup.
I had moved out of my AAUS scientific diving into some citizen scientist work underwater and the training and buddy discipline was not the same. That got me into the first steps of a pony and a solo mindset which lead to sidemount as my default setup.
1. Because they told me I couldn't. My first solo dive was dive #14, as soon as I finished AOW.
2. Because if I didn't, I wouldn't be diving even half as often.
3. Because it allows me to focus more on the natural environment. It's the same reason I hike solo.
4. Because of my five (non-training) underwater adrenaline moments to date, three were caused by other divers.
2. Because if I didn't, I wouldn't be diving even half as often.
3. Because it allows me to focus more on the natural environment. It's the same reason I hike solo.
4. Because of my five (non-training) underwater adrenaline moments to date, three were caused by other divers.
Blackcrusader
Contributor
I will do the solo TDI cert in the future. Why? Well I like to take photos and sometimes those insta buddies just don't stick around and leave you.. So in the end we all end up doing solo dives.
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