Solo diving

[dtdiver]

"a buddy makes recreational diving a more pleasurable and safer activity. Ideally, you should dive with a regular dive buddy whose habits and skill level are compatible with yours and from whom surprises at depth will be limited"

sounds like a rather rational and reasonable idea.
practically (and from experience) speaking, it is also true!!

notice the terms "recreational" and "compatible"

if you are a good diver and your dive buddy is a novice and you expect his SAC and skills to match yours, they won't and the dive will be a novice dive, period.

!unless! the more experienced diver lowers his expectation and commits to helping the less experienced diver, so it becomes enjoyable for both.

it seems not every diver has an attitude to do this, so they should only dive with "compatible" buddies.

dt

 

[cavemanxxx]

Agreed.

I do not promote solo diving, and would be not very happy with some one reading my mails, think they should give it a try. Diving witha great buddy who follows you like a puppy dog, sure, well recommended ( eventhough being alone is still very enjoyable )......... but I totally disagree with those who state that Buddy Diving is safer.

As per previous mails, I was brought into stress situations by people in proximity to me who were not my buddy which would never have happend during solo.

 

[Charlie99]

caveman once bubbled...
Diving witha great buddy who follows you like a puppy dog, sure, well recommended.......

If this is your idea of a good buddy, then I understand why you like solo better.

My idea of a good buddy dive is two self-sufficient divers each diving their own dive, while following the general dive plan, staying in contact and aware of the other buddy. This way two people are looking for cool stuff, and you also have a witness when you spot that 14' moray.

 

[double125's]

Caveman, just to spin off your post I have a personal experience why some people should never solo and how other people can invoke panic. While diving vortex spring I made a trip to the gate and was exiting when I encountered a diver (aproximatly 70 ft deep and 100' back in the cave) who was asking for help(with what I could not figure out) he proceeded to take his bc off and fool around with it. he the took his reg out of his mouth (for aprox 15 sec) and fondled with his gear some more. At this point I switched to my necklace and got ready to shove my primary in his mouth. he finally put his reg back in, Then I helped him get his bc back on, then I escorted him to the surface. Apparently he had some hoses tangled up, but back in a cave is no place to do this type of proceedure. he should have aborted the dive and fixed the problem on land instead of cutting my dive short. Imagine if he would have done that to someone with little experience, he made me nervous because I didnt want to have to drag a body out of the cave and there was no way I was going to let someone acting like this go anywhere without a buddy(keep in mind I did not no what he was thinking, my initial thoughts were narcosis or some mental disease). after we got back on land we talked for a while and he is a pretty experienced diver but I still think he showed poor judgment on his decisions. A couple other notes, he was solo diving with old equipment (20 + years old), entered into an overhead environment knowing his equipment was not on him properly, I believe he only had one light and he was diving without any redundancy( a single al 80 with reg and octo which was not properly secured)

 

[clockradio]

i dive solo on occasion,and enjoy it. i don't have a problem if i'm in an area that i am familiar with.started out diving solo when there were no other divers around.i dive conservative and keep within safe practices.

 

[diverkim]

dtdiver once bubbled...
it seems not every diver has an attitude to do this, so they should only dive with "compatible" buddies.
dt

... there are no 'compatible' buddies or no buddies at all? Does that mean that someone possessing certain requisite criteria, according to my earlier posts, must not dive? :mean:

As for others putting one at risk, well, I can recount numerous instances of this. I have grapped onto many divers to prevent them shooting up to the surface. I have even sank like a rock while equalizing like crazy to halt a careening descent by a young woman overloaded with weight and seemingly ignorant of the use of a BCD.

I have never encountered a problem when alone. Granted this is anecdotal but it has some validity.

 

[cavemanxxx]

Double 125's

Too right, dont they scare the **** out of you ( the guy in the cave ) . Had a similar experience with a guy on a wreck ( who was not my buddy ) a few months ago , puffing like a steam train at 30 meters, bulging / paniced eyes -obviously in over his head. He went through 150+ bar in 15 mins ( yes, that is an achievement, how do they do it ? ) and when he surfaced he said " I was ok , everything was cool " ( Deinal in the first degree )


I am comfortable diving Solo in non-over heads, or on sites which I know very very well ( i.e. Hardeep Wreck near Bangkok Thailand ). Eventhough I did my cavern certification, I dont think I would enter cavern environment solo at this point, even with 700 - 800 dives. I have been entangeld before on a wreck, and a Buddy is a handy piece of equipment to have around !


Never the less, I still maintain that Solo can be just as safe ( or even more ), and the Buddy system proponents should start to acknowledge some of the weaknesses of the system ( i.e. putting your life in someone elses hands, having panicing people rip at your regulator / mask etc. ).

 

[cavemanxxx]

p.s. Look at teh people who vote against versus for or semi - for it !

 

[Barracuda2]

Diving solo for a videographer has its advantage. Example: Two weeks ago I captured the classic shot (very close up) of a male yellow head jawfish taking care of his eggs. It took me about 15 min. to inch in close enough for this type of shot without scaring him into his burrow. If this fish disappeared into his burrow, it would be a fairly long time before he came back out. Once I was set for the shot, it took at least 10 min. or more of running tape before he finally brought all the eggs out to turn them and then suck them back in. It was a great shot! It even looks better in slow-mow. First, if I were diving with a buddy at this time, I doubt that the yellow head would have stayed out with him swimming about. They are very wary. They have to get use to your presense. 2nd, a buddy would have been very bored waiting on me for a half an hour to get this one shot. This type of capture takes an inordinate amount of time, more than the non-video diver would tolerate. I repeated this senario throughout the week with a nudibrach and a sand tile fish and squid. I don't believe I would have captured these kinds of behaviors with a buddy hovering near by. When I do this, I'm usually very near the boat, sometimes right under it, and in shallow water - 25-40 ft. I know it's better to have a buddy, but shooting video solo produces much better opportunities.

Barracuda2

 

[PhotoTJ]

I never go diving by myself, but when hunting, my buddies and I usually split up, and meet at the surface.