Solo Poll

[crispos]

My favorite water hobby for many years due to lack of money and a hungry belly was spearfishing, preferred weapon Hawaiian sling, often over a mile offshore from some deserted beach, freediving down to as much as 70 feet, sometimes with sharks in the water and a tiny dive platform to get onto if they got too hungry. This was stupid but fun.

This was definitely less safe than without a buddy and I feel lucky I did not succumb to shallow water blackout in my ignorance.

I do not have 400 scuba dives, but I have 400 free dives. I think the buddy from hell obviously can make a scuba dive less safe than solo. This includes buddies who get into OOA situations. But scuba has to be safer with another source of air near you, even if attached to a goof.

 

[James connell]

crispos once bubbled...
But scuba has to be safer with another source of air near you, even if attached to a goof.

scuba is safer with a second air source attached to YOU not some buddy who may or may not have not noticed that you stopped to look at a fish and continued on to the other side of the coral head. he's only 10 ft from you, but you have to find him in an emergancy! there is a number of things wrong with assuming that you can always go to your buddy in an emergency.

 

[rmediver2002]

Just noticed among divers with less than 400 dives the highest number of votes is for just as safe as diving with a buddy.

I am not sure this is an entirely good thing, I really don't feel number of dives is an indicator of skill level or experience level but at the same time unless you have either practiced to self respond or conducted self response (due to error or malfunction) at some point in your career as a diver are you sure about how you would recover from a problem?

I think some of this poll is coming across as very misleading, my vote is for as safe but this is tempered with the requirement that responding to problems has been thought out, practiced, and can be performed without panic or distress.

I am not talking about some bull-scat course or c-card for diving solo, but the diver having the experience and ability to think on the go for themself and knowing they will be able to handle any situation on thier own...

Of course all that said unless you have gotten yourself into a situation while diving solo how would you know for sure?

Jeff Lane

 

[DennisS]

I don't think solo diving is as safe as diving with a buddy. I think it is safe if you prepare for it and dive well within your limits. There will always be a situation where a buddy would make a difference, entanglement, illness, injury or gear problems. The majority of my diving, 2-3 dives a week is solo, in water under 25 ft, in an area I am familiar with. It's tropical diving from the beach and I consider it safe, not as safe as with a buddy though.

 

[GQMedic]

I'm calling the Shut-up And Dive Police!!!

 

[blackice]

While I enjoy diving with a buddy from the companionship point of view, I can see when there are time that solo dive would be a good choice.

But I have experienced having a buddy that was no buddy - he swam down to 20m when I was about to decend and this is on my second OW dive.

He continued to follow his own profile ingoring the Instructor and I was left to do the skills alone.

Since then I have been lucky enough to have good buddies but at time it might prove safer to state upfrout that you will be diving alone.

I also belileve that experience, training and ability play a major factor in being able to solo dive.

 

[Grumman581]

I tend to always dive solo, even if there are others people diving off the same boat... I carry my own completely redundant air supply -- I dive independents, not manifolded doubles... If I screw up, it is my responsibility to get myself out of it... OTOH, if you want my old lady's phone number, you're going to have to recover my corpse after I screw up... <grin>

 

[gazzahawkes]

Solo or self sufficent.........

Better than an unexperienced buddie grabbing my reg in panic or worse dragging me up at the end of a dive..

Instructors are generally more at risk with students than solo diving.

If you truly cannot cope without a buddy should you be in the water???

Once again a four day dive course is simply not enough

regards gary

 

[drbill]

Since I only started logging dives three years ago and have been diving (off and on) since 1962, I'm going to estimate that I've done about 700 solo and 700 buddy dives.

For the most part my solo diving is as safe as diving with a number of the buddies I've picked up or been assigned. Some were absolute disasters, endangering my life with their overstated skills level.

Diving solo in areas I'm familiar with, and carrying a pony if I'm going deeper than 50-60 ft, I feel much safer than diving with these buddies above. MUCH safer!

Diving with my regular buddies is a pleasure and safe as well. They are all very experienced divers, maintain good buddy awareness given we are both doing video or still work, and much more fun to share the dive with after we surface. If one of my buddies could be there every day I want to dive, I might not do another solo dive... but they can rarely be there.

If I'm in a new location, I feel safer with a buddy (since I don't carry my pony bottle when I travel internationally- I backpack).

Dr. Bill

 

[coliseum]

Even with the most experienced divers... WHAT IF... WHAT IF... WHAT IF?

The answer to the WHAT IFs is that your chances are 100% higher when you have a buddy...

so why risk diving Solo? unless you have a death wish!