Where did you solo dive today?

[rx7diver]

I called one of my DAUGHTERS and gave her my "dive plan"

@MikeWD,

Besides informing a responsible someone beforehand (like you and others do), also making sure he/she has my license plate number and description of my car, I also leave a note addressed to PD/EMS/First Responders, on my windshield visor, out of immediate view, containing my dive plan and my emergency contact info.

rx7diver

 

[Gandalf-the-Diver]

@MikeWD,

Besides informing a responsible someone beforehand (like you and others do), also making sure he/she has my license plate number and description of my car, I also leave a note addressed to PD/EMS/First Responders, on my windshield visor, out of immediate view, containing my dive plan and my emergency contact info.

rx7diver

My daughter IS a 1st responder. We joked that she would probably know, whoever would come to rescue me, if needed.

 

[Pareto]

Unpopular opinion: When my time is up, it's up. No one will be able to save me if I have an incident on a solo dive that I can't solve myself. That's why I don't want to be dependent on help from others when diving and regularly train for incidents.

I always leave my wife the exact dive site and contact her right before the dive to let her know that I am going in the water and when she can expect a sign of life. This calms her down, but brings me nothing in an emergency.

If something really happens to me, hopefully they will bring me to the surface early enough to bury me in an open casket.

Memento Mori, dive within your limits and train your skills regularly.

Greetings from Switzerland
Pareto

 

[Ana]

Unpopular opinion: When my time is up, it's up. No one will be able to save me if I have an incident on a solo dive that I can't solve myself. That's why I don't want to be dependent on help from others when diving and regularly train for incidents.

I always leave my wife the exact dive site and contact her right before the dive to let her know that I am going in the water and when she can expect a sign of life. This calms her down, but brings me nothing in an emergency.

If something really happens to me, hopefully they will bring me to the surface early enough to bury me in an open casket.

Memento Mori, dive within your limits and train your skills regularly.

Greetings from Switzerland
Pareto

It isn't unpopular really. Most of us know that if something happens during the dive the likelihood of help arriving on time for anything more than a recovery may not be very high. But if someone doesn't trigger the recovery on time, there may be nothing to put on your casket.

Also there are many things that could happen on that dive day, not necessarily underwater. Pilots submit flight plans, many boaters do similar with certain marinas too.

My husband and I dive solo taking turns out of our boat, depending on conditions or mood we say how long we are planning to dive.
Not that the person topside is gonna be able to save the day if something fatal happens, but knowing something is not right at a timely manner increases the chances of gear recovery... we don't care about the casket deal.
Typically we stay 1 hour. Sometimes things look really nice, we feel particularly optimistic and there's no topside commitments, so we say I'll be an hour but maybe more, watch for flag signals around the hour mark.

 

[BoltSnap]

It isn't unpopular really. Most of us know that if something happens during the dive the likelihood of help arriving on time for anything more than a recovery may not be very high. But if someone doesn't trigger the recovery on time, there may be nothing to put on your casket.

Also there are many things that could happen on that dive day, not necessarily underwater. Pilots submit flight plans, many boaters do similar with certain marinas too.

My husband and I dive solo taking turns out of our boat, depending on conditions or mood we say how long we are planning to dive.
Not that the person topside is gonna be able to save the day if something fatal happens, but knowing something is not right at a timely manner increases the chances of gear recovery... we don't care about the casket deal.
Typically we stay 1 hour. Sometimes things look really nice, we feel particularly optimistic and there's no topside commitments, so we say I'll be an hour but maybe more, watch for flag signals around the hour mark.

If you get caught in a current and your drift far away from our exit point, having somebody look for you after you have failed to connect at the agreed on time is a lifesaver. Not all issues in diving happen underwater, in fact, a lot of them happen on the surface. One case was when a diver was under water diving solo with his friend waiting for him on the surface on the boat. The friend on the boat had a heart attack and dropped dead on the boat. The boat drifted away from the spot where the diver was and when the diver came up to the surface, there was no boat. Land was many miles away. Leaving a "float plan" with friends on land saved the diver and the person on the boat had a proper burial.

The point here is that what happens is usually totally unexpected and one needs to prepare for the unknown and unexpected.

 

[Gandalf-the-Diver]

If you get caught in a current and your drift very far away from our exit point, having somebody look for you after you have failed to connect on the agreed on time is a lifesaver. Not all issues in diving happen underwater, in fact, a lot of them happen on the surface. One case was when a diver was under water diving solo with his friend waiting for him on the surface on the boat. The friend on the boat had a heart attack and dropped dead on the boat. The boat drifted away from the spot where the diver was and when the diver came up to the surface, there was no boat. Land was many miles away. Leaving a "float plan" with friends on land saved the diver and the person on the boat had a proper burial.

The point here is that what happens is usually totally unexpected and one needs to prepare for the unknown and unexpected.

Nautilus GPS helps too

 

[BoltSnap]

Nautilus GPS helps too

Of course if you can buy it and you are diving in a country where it would help. I live in a country where no one will help you except your buddies. No coastguard or anyone connected to be able to get the signal here.

What scares me is the unexpected, unanticipated, unknown that you didn't think about before.

 

[Cdncoldwater]

Did a quick search yesterday for a mooring piece but was unsuccessful. I only had a single back mount tank with no redundant air so I set a depth limit of 20 feet; my wife was watching from shore. Visibility was very poor, 4-6 feet with a light, heavy silt bottom. This is a man made head pond for a dam with dead fall trees, stumps and a steep slope on the bottom with an unknown depth of <70 feet in this area. I'll likely try again when I have my redundancies and my canister light.

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

my desk. sigh.

 

[Pressurehead]

Where did you solo dive today?
Back on topic:
Two dives on the local reefs , first dive good vis but surge on the surface which made it hard to climb the ladder, bored after 40min little sea life.
2nd dive the vis deteriorated but large schools of fish and a turtle showed up,same surge but happy, easy to climb the ladder, 50min.
90 min of my "Zen" time.