When/where to practice solo skills? And what to practice?

[Graveyarddiver]

Just my two cents.

1) treat every dive as if you are diving alone, even if you have a buddy. You could very easily lose him, and need to extricate yourself from a bad situation.

2) your buddy is NOT your redundancy. You should always have your own alternate air supply, and have to ability to surface on your own, without jeopardizing your buddies supply.

3) have 2 of everything, in hard or soft overhead 3 of anything considered life support when possible.

4) train, train and train. Just because you have done it does not mean you are proficient, go to your local quarry and practice all the skills you will need in an worst case scenario. Try navigating on your penetration line with a blacked out mask, and conducting isolation drills, then switching to your clear mask. You’ll learn a lot about your buoyancy, ability to move and work an issue under pressure.

I learned these necessities the hard way, I was alone after being separated from my “buddy” on a wreck, when the boats anchor came lose. Now I was alone, without a route to the surface, and owed 20 minutes of deco. Training, planning, and being self reliant, saved my ass in that situation. As divers we are responsible for ourselves. Although I was diving with a buddy, I was prepared to execute every aspect of the dive alone, with my own redundancies.

As far as solo diving in general is concerned, it forces you to be prepared to deal with every possible scenario on your own. If you are comfortable taking the leap, my suggestion is tech training, over a solo diver course. You will learn considerably more about planning, gas management, different gas sources, managing different gasses, and how to be self sufficient.

 

[Johanan]

If you are comfortable taking the leap, my suggestion is tech training, over a solo diver course. You will learn considerably more about planning, gas management, different gas sources, managing different gasses, and how to be self sufficient.

Precisely. Most of my open water dives have been solo without a “solo” course. Most of them have been training dives in my local quarry to practise buoyancy control, maneouvering and skills. Concerning the gear, Sidemount twins IMO are ideally suitable for solo diving. Regarding the skills, I can hardly imagine a better course than the Full Cave, for instance. Theoretically, if you master a Sidemount Full Cave course (with a good, demanding instructor), you will have the gear, the skills and the attitude for diving solo in open water. Plus you can dive caves. I don’t know, however, if it would be enough for the dive operators to let you dive without a buddy.

 

[A.S.H.]

You obviously have been 'infected'. Pointless to talk you out of it. Yes, change masks in the bathtub until you realize that a mask is a wonderful convenience, not a necessity.
Yes, go out of gas time and again in the tub. Do it until you can feel it coming in your own gear. Then hold your breath. When you can't take it any longer start diaphragmatic compressions to gain more time. The whole point of this is that you are the guy who is never going to die alone underwater.

It is about being a survivor alone, cold, compromised, and in the dark. Truth is, even now, nobody really has your back.

Wow..I thought I only did this... interesting...I go to the East Texas Scuba Parks to train..Max of 40 ft maybe..for solo dives..

 

[Michael Guerrero]

I'd say don't be discouraged by SB nannies. The reasons you want to dive solo are completely valid.

As was said above, practice in benign conditions. Practice taking out and employing your emergency equipment (SMB, shears/knife, spare mask, etc.). Practice removing and replacing your second, independent air supply. Practice good gas management and overall situational awareness. Practice good buoyancy, trim, and propulsion techniques (filming yourself in a pool is probably the best possible way to do this). And visualize how you would respond to various issues. Visualization improves performance.

Learning to dive solo early on isn't the crazy idea some will lead you to believe.

 

[A.S.H.]

Hello Divers,
Well it comes down to one simple fact, that it is up to the DIVER on what there skill level is, regardless of schools and courses taken, proper gear selection, and what RISK they willing to undertake, that's it in a nutshell.

Solo, Partner, Team, it doesn't matter, skill level/gear selection is everything.

Skill level has nothing to do with X number of dives you may have...

Thanks

 

[Cyborg Pirate]

I agree with graveyarddiver on all points but 1. Personally I think taking the SDI solo course really boosted my learning experience in Tech classes. The mindset, the attitude, and the planning I gained from the solo course was by far the best course I have taken. Just my opinion.

 

[Landlocked123]

They just opened a new large quarry which phenomenal viz and diving (for quarry standards) and they do not allow solo diving even if certified. I considered getting the cert. I solo dive every dive even if my buddy is near me. I train and practice in my pool with a blacked out mask for all contingencies. But am now second guessing if I want to get certified as it seems many places are starting to disallow solo diving. Is this a trend in the industry?

 

[lowviz]

...//... But am now second guessing if I want to get certified as it seems many places are starting to disallow solo diving. Is this a trend in the industry?

No, it is not a trend, more like the way it always was. Suck it up and get certified. It is all in the training, not the card.

All my ocean dives and all my back bay night dives have been solo, still are. But I still can't dive solo in Dutch, I've become fine with that. The ocean is just 15 more minutes away.

Lawyers...

 

[Ana]

I haven't read the full thread but the title called my attention.

"Practice" hmmm.. I realize there's the ever present "practice makes perfect" I believe is the twin sibling of "a wise person is always learning"

With that said.... what's the difference between the routine Saturday morning dive with a practice dive? Is it the frame of mind? One could argue that even if you don't purposely think about every move you make, muscle memory kicks in.

Few weeks ago I witnessed an example of deeply ingrained muscle memory. Went out for a picnic in the ocean with a couple of divers, don't recall why we weren't diving but the plan was just to eat, drink and just float on the surface. I set up a couple of buoys attached to the boat and got ready to drift together with the vessel and we proceeded to get in the waster, well one person did a back roll with one hand in her facer holding an imaginary mask/2nd stage. It looked very funny, we all realized what she was doing... but the amusing part was that she actually breathed out of that imaginary 2nd stage, granted it gave her a mouth full of water but certainly made us think. Typically she only goes to the ocean when there's diving involved and she's been diving for over 3 decades so she got in the water the way she's done it hundreds of times.

I just did a couple of solo dives this past weekend. The last thing in my head was practice, my goal was to get some lobster and/or kill lionfish if any crossed my path. The diving happened, but my attention was on the sea life. That's not to say I wasn't aware of the diving, feeling any changes of temperature triggered the need to check water temperature, which in turn made me look at my gas supply. Saw a small grouper, made me think of food so I looked at my watch to see how long before my meal, so I look at my gas supply again. And like that through out the dives there were different events that triggered the checking of gas supply. But each time I looked I didn't actually saw that I had X psi left, when I look at that number my brain doesn't see an amount of gas available, somehow I'm just thinking I can stay longer, if someone was to ask me at that precise instant how much I have I wouldn't be able to answer accurately, I had to say "I have enough".
Parallel to that, there are times I get involved in tasks that require more effort than normal and I can guess how much gas I've used within 100psi. I don't recall ever practicing that, but I like diving, and do it as often as possible so certain things seem to just happen when I'm diving.

So yeah, I suppose that's what I think about "practice"... I don't do it, sounds like work and takes away from my fun.

 

[EireDiver606]

Diving with someone who isn’t a good diver is essentially solo diving.

If you want to true solo diving, you should carry a redundant gas source if you can.