Why I should Not be Solo Diving?

[cummings66]

As for the entaglement issue.

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I haven't heard of anyone running drills on this, but it seems like it is a serious enough concern to warrant it.

We did that in my OW class. From what I hear it's not common.

 

[cummings66]

Why not get out of the BC, provided that you can, while continuously holding onto all the weight of course?

You answered your own question without realizing it. "Provided that you can". That should be all you need to know. However...

I'll relate a story of an entanglement and why it was not possible to remove gear.

We're at 50 or 60 feet diving through the tree's and manage to get hung up. Now we dive dirty lakes and the vis is poor, normally IMO if I can see a line I can break it with my hands and I always have in the past. The reason you can break them is that if you can see it the line has been there long enough to get weak. If you can't see it it's new line and going to be stronger.

This line I could not see, I finally found it but could not feel where it was except that it was above and behind, most likely hung up on my tank valve but I can't prove that. Now we're near the bottom, tree limbs are immediately above us and you can not go up at all or you'll be stuck in limbs and that's not something you'll cut. Not these at any rate. The standard method of getting unstuck didn't work, we really did come to a dead stop with no option left but cutting at that point. When I say we I mean both of us are hung up. I was able to free him, and that in turn is what got me freed up as well. Neither of us actually thought that 2 divers would get stuck at the same time but it happened.

Again I'll have to point out that it may have been possible to get out solo, although a solo diver in that area would have been silly as the entanglement risk was much higher.

Since that dive I've freed 2 other buddies from lines they could not get out of by themselves.

You must understand one thing, our lakes are used for fishing and the tree's were not removed from them, so they're like Christmas tree's with all the monofilament on them, most of which is rotten. However, if you dive these lakes and want to see the wrecks on the bottom, or the rocks, there is a real possibility that you will encounter fishing line that can't be broken.

To this day when I dive among tree's I vividly recall being stuck in place and I stay a bit closer to my buddy. In fact last weekend I freed a buddy from a line he got stuck on, he might have got out on his own but we'll never know because I got him out before he had much time to do it on his own. That's one of my duties as a responsible buddy, I'll pay attention to you and stay by your side for the one in a million events that could end your life.

To me being a buddy means that I am your lifeline, I am your support and will back you up, nothing is more important to me than your safety. If I accept that job you can rest assured that I WILL be there when it counts and I won't be deterred in my determination to help you. That doesn't mean I'll follow you a mile into a cave we have no business in however, nor that I'll go down to 200 feet with you. As a buddy we'll plan the dive together to get what we both want out of it and your duty to me is the same as mine to you. So, we stick together and follow the plan as closely as we can. We both know and believe that diving within our limits is good, neither of us is going to do something beyond that training we have.

As one of my good buddies says, I'm there watching you to insure you don't do something incompatible with life. Now that's a buddy I'm proud to dive with.

Not all buddies believe and act that way and thus sometimes it is better to dive solo instead of with them. I have dove with buddies that caused me to risk my life in order to save theirs when it should have never even been an issue. I've followed them down deep to save their hides when they should have never been that deep, I've followed them into the open water when we're low on air to turn them back to shore or the boat because they can't navigate. Usually those kinds of buddies are the ones who think they've got to move full steam ahead under water and violate every step of the plan we've made. I've often thought to myself they deserve to be let loose on their own and face the consequences of their actions, but I'm not that kind of buddy so I've never done it. To be honest those divers are the insta kind, but they're also the dangerous ones and I've often wanted to dive solo instead of with them, however policy of the boat is to not allow that so I'm partnered up.

So yes, solo diving can often be safer than buddy diving, but IMO a good buddy is very nice to have and well worth the time to establish a relationship with.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Nice post, Matthew.

 

[Newlynarked]

Define please?

IMO?

DIR?

 

[Soggy]

IMO?

In My Opinion

DIR?

Read the "What is DIR?" post at the top of the DIR Forum.

 

[TSandM]

To echo Doc, beautiful post, Mr. Cummings!

 

[mdb]

Matthew: I will echo the others and thank you for your well thought out and very reasonable post.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Yes Matthew. Great post. There are places that solo diving is not very safe and yours is a good illustration of one of those places. I would re-thnk going solo where the entanglement risk is high.

 

[JeffG]

Are there many DIR divers who do, even though it is outside the DIR philosophy?

Opposite of teenage sex. Everyone is doing it, but nobody talks about it


Ok, kidding aside who knows. I know for myself that would be hard to go back and forth between solo mentality to team mentality.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Thanks for the post Jeff. I was curious about rationalizing the move back and forth.