What is your gear configuration for solo dives less that 50’

[Eric Sedletzky]

I was a get in/get out type of ab diver too.
I could freedive good enough and get deep enough to go where 90% of the general ab diving population couldn’t get to and get my limit.
I didn’t shop around much, I just pulled the first 4 good ones (later three) and went home.
Nothing worse than getting home at 5:00 and still have to clean gear and slice and pound abs till 8:00 at night.

 

[Bob DBF]

My buddy Jack has 25 10+ inchers he's gotten over the years. I was always in it for the meat so 8.5" was my biggest. I was a get in and get out kinda ab diver. He would spend hours swimming far offshore and making some incredible deep freedives. He's now 78 and we still dive together.

It depended on the day, I loved poking around in the kelp and rocks to see what was around, found some good spearfishing spots that way, oh yeah, along with. weight belts, ab and spearfishing gear. Some dives were just grocery runs. I found that abs that were 7" across the short side, or better, were a perfect size for dinner.

Back in the late 70's, early 80's I managed to find a couple of 10+ abs. The first was at Van Damme inside the reef on the south side close to shore. It was in real thick kelp, at the base, upside down on a rock overhang. My fin tips were out of the water when I took it. The other was up on the Lost Coast.

Unless it was rough out, I would usually take the abs with my hand, rather than a bar, as it was easier on both of us, although I did bend a bar on one, which gave me something to think about. I was young, so I didn't think much.

It's good you have had a dive buddy so long, I still see most of my old buddies, but they have all given up on diving along the way.

 

[SubseaSports]

This thread is a good read.... thanks y'all.

Here, the depth thresholds are different.
Solo shore dive will get you 30' ish max. And that's a looooong swim. Bare minimum in this scenario. I use a 25lb wing (less drag) on an old DR ABS plate with a 117. Two cutting tools, EMT shear and a dagger knife. Sometimes I bring a gun, sometimes I don't. If shooting, I bring a diy floating fish cooler/dive buoy that helps with sharks. Chem lights attached to buoy jic.

To get deeper = boat dive.
This can be 40'-100'. Typically the charters I choose will be in the 80'-100' range. I bring the whole kit because charter planned shallower dives can easily become deeper ones.
I use a wing with more lift (35 or 45 lbs) and add a bailout tank. If I am hunting, larger wing, the bailout is back mounted and inverted. If just blowing bubbles, I will sling it.

 

[TheRedFox]

Sorry to be that guy. But you gear list goes against literally everything I was taught in Solo diver, and I've pulled a lot of people who thought just like this out of the local dive sites. Having seen what that does, please don't do that to the local rescue workers and your family.

Solo diving is about redundant everything because you're the only person down there you can count on. At MINIMUM you need redundant cutting device, I prefer one on my BCD and one on my person. Redundant buoyancy, I use an SMB. Redundant air, I won't do anything less than a pony, usually a side slung Al40 but for a shallow dive at a familiar site an HP15 mounted to my tank. Though I know guys who just run an H valve on their main tank. And redundant time and depth systems, I run a Shearwater Peregrine but a dive watch and SPG will work.

With your current system you have to get lucky every dive. The water only has to get lucky once. Don't plan for everything to go perfectly. Plan for it all to go wrong at once, because fatal accidents are rarely caused by a single issue, but compounding problems that rapidly spiral out of control and pretty much every one of those divers was certain they could handle their last dive.

 

[Ana]

Sorry to be that guy. But you gear list goes against literally everything I was taught in Solo diver, and I've pulled a lot of people who thought just like this out of the local dive sites. Having seen what that does, please don't do that to the local rescue workers and your family.

Solo diving is about redundant everything because you're the only person down there you can count on. At MINIMUM you need redundant cutting device, I prefer one on my BCD and one on my person. Redundant buoyancy, I use an SMB. Redundant air, I won't do anything less than a pony, usually a side slung Al40 but for a shallow dive at a familiar site an HP15 mounted to my tank. Though I know guys who just run an H valve on their main tank. And redundant time and depth systems, I run a Shearwater Peregrine but a dive watch and SPG will work.

With your current system you have to get lucky every dive. The water only has to get lucky once. Don't plan for everything to go perfectly. Plan for it all to go wrong at once, because fatal accidents are rarely caused by a single issue, but compounding problems that rapidly spiral out of control and pretty much every one of those divers was certain they could handle their last dive.

Don't worry, someone already manxplained to @Eric Sedletzky how wrong his ways are. But I'm sure you can be clearer.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Sorry to be that guy. But you gear list goes against literally everything I was taught in Solo diver, and I've pulled a lot of people who thought just like this out of the local dive sites. Having seen what that does, please don't do that to the local rescue workers and your family.

Solo diving is about redundant everything because you're the only person down there you can count on. At MINIMUM you need redundant cutting device, I prefer one on my BCD and one on my person. Redundant buoyancy, I use an SMB. Redundant air, I won't do anything less than a pony, usually a side slung Al40 but for a shallow dive at a familiar site an HP15 mounted to my tank. Though I know guys who just run an H valve on their main tank. And redundant time and depth systems, I run a Shearwater Peregrine but a dive watch and SPG will work.

With your current system you have to get lucky every dive. The water only has to get lucky once. Don't plan for everything to go perfectly. Plan for it all to go wrong at once, because fatal accidents are rarely caused by a single issue, but compounding problems that rapidly spiral out of control and pretty much every one of those divers was certain they could handle their last dive.

So at your dive sites do you have swells, rips, current, and surf?
Do you carry an extra set of fins by chance? not on a boat either I mean when you’re out in the ocean on a shore dive. Or at least a few fin straps that you can somehow change out in the middle of the ocean, because around here losing a fin would be way more problematic than an issue with air supply.
Do you have seals that steal fins?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Don't worry, someone already manxplained to @Eric Sedletzky how wrong his ways are. But I'm sure you can be clearer.

I’m sure glad all my writing didn’t go to complete waste, ha ha ha ha ha .

 

[Thrutch]

So contentious for such a peaceful activity. I've had enough and am calling the scuba police on the lot of you.

 

[Robert H. Diver]

Sorry to be that guy. But you gear list goes against literally everything I was taught in Solo diver, and I've pulled a lot of people who thought just like this out of the local dive sites. Having seen what that does, please don't do that to the local rescue workers and your family.

Solo diving is about redundant everything because you're the only person down there you can count on. At MINIMUM you need redundant cutting device, I prefer one on my BCD and one on my person. Redundant buoyancy, I use an SMB. Redundant air, I won't do anything less than a pony, usually a side slung Al40 but for a shallow dive at a familiar site an HP15 mounted to my tank. Though I know guys who just run an H valve on their main tank. And redundant time and depth systems, I run a Shearwater Peregrine but a dive watch and SPG will work.

With your current system you have to get lucky every dive. The water only has to get lucky once. Don't plan for everything to go perfectly. Plan for it all to go wrong at once, because fatal accidents are rarely caused by a single issue, but compounding problems that rapidly spiral out of control and pretty much every one of those divers was certain they could handle their last dive.

Dont waste your breath. They don’t care and would rather make emergency ascents than switch to a pony and be ok

 

[Bigbella]

Sorry to be that guy. But you gear list goes against literally everything I was taught in Solo diver, and I've pulled a lot of people who thought just like this out of the local dive sites.

Northern California waters ain't Baywatch, by a long-shot -- and I've dragged a fair share of hopelessly entangled, so-called "technical" divers out of rough surf entries, where they were "turtled" and incapable of even standing, due to the amount of extraneous gear.

It's a real pet peeve.

The OP comes from a long tradition, as do I, of free-diving for abalone and urchins, along on the North Coast, where a bare minimum of skin diving gear was used (by state law, at least for the sake of the abs) -- and that minimalist tradition also segued to the local use of scuba.

Surf entries were often rough or required decisive timing between wave sets; and some of my favorite sites, near Mendocino were rocky entries and exits where that excess of gear would pose an even greater handicap than its lack, especially while scrambling across sharp and slippery rock surfaces, with white water surging behind you -- not to mention the added effort of just hiking in and out of some remote spots.

It's ultimately about acceptable levels of personal risk. Having once had to perform a controlled ascent from close to 20 meters, that's about as much as I am willing to do, before I, eh -- pony-up . . .