To dive alone ...

[Custer]

Doc Intrepid once bubbled...


99% of all divers who dive alone will survive nicely.

99.99999999999993%, more like it.

Doc Intrepid once bubbled... If the low probability event happens while they are solo, their survival is doubtful.
Those are the odds that solo divers accept. So long as they are willing to play those odds, so be it.

Your post is very true, but you must also factor in dependence on a buddy that may not be able to do the job, and a buddy that might outright kill you when he encounters his own problem. However high or low you may consider those two percentages to be, they will offset, to an individual degree for each diver, the safety disadvantage of diving solo.

As the poll is going now, less than 10% of the divers taking it practice adequate buddy protocol.

Now they've made their choice, fine.

But what if they're your buddy?

 

[sharpenu]

Intrepid sez:
"But every once in awhile something happens underwater that was not planned. If shore diving, the surf comes up radically during the time you are down. Strong downwellings or currents can drag divers down or far offcourse. A mouthpiece can suddenly fail, and the diver inhales a lungful of gas and seawater mixed. A diver can become enmeshed in the invisible floating shroud of a monofilament fishing net. "

Explain how you feel a buddy would fix any of these problems. (Not a flame, just want to know) If filling your BC doesnt beat a downwell, how can a buddy help? Filling lungs with seawater, well unless your buddy is capable of performing advanced life support, you're done. Fishing nets just mean that there are now 2 of you entangled.

The truth is, if you are an instructor, you are solo every time you take a class out. Being here in Florida, we have more inexperienced divers in our water than (IMO) anywhere else. I would rather not have anyone there than a diver who will do something foolish and place me in danger. The DAN numbers do not lie. Most divers who are injured/killed have less than 25 dives in the last 12 months, but most have buddies. A buddy is less of a factor than brains and experience.

 

[WaterDawg]

Ok so most of you decide to dive solo cause you think your buddy options suck, right and they'll just slow you down, but what do you tell an unsafe bud as an excuse not to dive w/ em???

Do you tell em this:

KingDiver:

Everybody has the same excuses:

1. Aw, I can't make it, the wife has got me doing other things, we have to go to a family function! WUSSY!!

2. Aw, it's raining out. Hey wussy, it doesn't rain underwater!!

3. Nah, Nascar's on, can't miss that. Ever hear of god damn VCR??

4. Nah, got **** to do around the house. then i'll pop in at the house unexpectadly and he's sitting there on his fat ass scrathching himself. Or herself

5. Then there's the ol' favorite: "Not now, I got a headache!'

[/B]

Maybe YOU are safe but your bud who just cant seem to find a buddy (cause hes not experianced enough) will probably go solo him/herself and then post here thathe dives solo too.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Ultimately, from my perspective, it comes down to a fundamental issue of those things that are within the diver's ability to control, and those things that are beyond the diver's ability to control.

Caveats to further debate:
1. I am not fanatically opposed to solo diving. I have done solo diving. Under conditions where I consider the odds to be high in my favor, I may do so again.
2. I have been on a boat as a single diver, and have been paired with an utter stranger. Ummmmm, lets just say I am a firm believer in self-sufficiency. See above comment re: things beyond the diver's control.

Those caveats stated, this is also true. You are safer when you are diving with a buddy with whom you are familiar, with whom you have dived often, and in whose skills and abilities you have trust and confidence - to the extent that anyone else is trustworthy when your survival is at stake.

You are safer under these circumstances because it remains true that two sets of eyes are better than one, and a buddy can solve problems before you become aware of them.

I cannot control environmental parameters, nor the weather, nor the whims of fate - lines parting under stress, etc. But I can usually control who I choose to dive with.

I am not arguing that a poor buddy or an unsafe diver is safer than no buddy at all. I am arguing that any diver is safer with a good buddy than with no buddy at all.

The diver always has, in the final analysis, control over at least two factors: with whom one will allow oneself to dive; and - failing that - whether one will get in the water at all.

FWIW. YMMV.

Specific comments:

Sharpenu - if you are having a traumatic reaction to inhaling water or a shallow water blackout, your buddy may get you to the surface when you are unable to ascend unassisted. Or not. Ask Dr. Paul.

Downwellings are rare, but divers have died in them. A buddy can link with you and deploy lift bags, between two wings and lift bags, a (well-trained and drilled) team may survive where individuals die.

I have been present where one diver was enmeshed in a net, and was successfully freed by other divers. Granted, it took some doing. The fact remains that, utterly alone, that individual would have died. That one I personally witnessed.

Custer -

I appreciate your response and your point. The fact remains that I have control over with whom I dive. That may be the only thing I control, but that much control I still have. On several occasions previously I have refused to dive any longer with a diver who exhibited inadequate buddy protocol (incidents specific to a preceding dive). I am not rude, and I explain why. Life goes on.

Doc

 

[Charlie99]

WaterDawg once bubbled...
Ok so most of you decide to dive solo cause you think your buddy options suck, right and they'll just slow you down, but what do you tell an unsafe bud as an excuse not to dive w/ em???

Do you tell em this:<list of excuses given by Kingdiver's potential buddies>

Funny, that's the same thought I had when reading Kingdiver's post.

I've never rejected a potential buddy because of their lack of experience, but have rejected guys because I got bad vibes about their attitude.

The most totally outrageous case of refusal to buddy with someone happened to me a couple years ago in Keys. I buddied with a couple, the husband leading. He jumped in and took off in the opposite direction from what we had agreed. He was oblivious when his wife signaled the agreed upon turnpoint pressure, and I had to sprint out to catch up and get him. Plus a few other similar problems.

As we got ready for the 2nd dive, the wife told me it was just going to be the two of us. She had told her husband to go find somebody else to buddy with! =-)

 

[Custer]

Doc Intrepid once bubbled...


Custer -

I appreciate your response and your point. The fact remains that I have control over with whom I dive. That may be the only thing I control, but that much control I still have. On several occasions previously I have refused to dive any longer with a diver who exhibited inadequate buddy protocol (incidents specific to a preceding dive). I am not rude, and I explain why. Life goes on.

Doc

That's re-active Doc, not pro-active.

During the initial dive, you must have been decidedly at some risk to come to the conclusion you wouldn't buddy with someone again.

(I support and admire your decision, but I've never met anyone that would bring me to that point)

And diving solo is also controlling with whom you dive.


As an aside, I find it interesting that 88% of the polled divers effectively dive solo, many without knowing it...

 

[Doc Intrepid]

I suspect that in this matter you and I would tend to agree far more than we disagree!

I also suspect that it may be possible that two primary reasons influence that (approx.) 88% figure you mentioned.

1. Most open water courses do not provide any truly significant emphasis on buddy teams, their benefits, their importance, and how to go about developing an effective buddy team. It is glossed over or paid lip service to at best. People tend not to do things if they perceive no benefit to them.

2. To some extent (in my own opinion only) it may have to do with the background of the individual. For example, my background involves small unit combat infantry operations and law enforcement tactical teams. This training and experience predisposes me to a perspective that "individuals die, teams survive". In the hazardous environments I am familiar with, the team is what brings everyone home safe. There is a tremendous team orientation. Old habits die hard. Therefore, I view the dive plan from the same orientation - a great deal of emphasis on 'team'. I work at trying to be a good buddy, and developing good buddies to dive with.

Others without that background (possibly 88% to 90% of the diving population - you think?) may feel far less compelled to consider any of that relevant to diving. Having never been in those environments, it is difficult for them to understand them. They may be correct. Perhaps to them diving is not a hazardous environment.

I don't intend to try to change their perspectives. I wish them well. I suspect that very little that they say will fundamentally alter my own. There have been too many times that my butt was saved by someone else on the team.

But these two factors may explain the statistics somewhat!

Doc

 

[Doc Intrepid]

you are quite correct. It IS reactive.

I'll dive with almost anyone once. In a controlled environment! There are only a couple instances where I've told someone I wouldn't dive with them again, and it was only after we'd already debriefed from an earlier dive and they then essentially demonstrated that they had no interest in teamwork. It wasn't that I was specifically at risk so much as it became clear to me that I could not count on them to look out for me as I was looking out for them.

Its an attitude thing, more than anything else.

Doc

P.S. Fill out your profile

 

[paulintexas]

hey, new here and just getting back into diving...

One question i had on this topic was the legal aspect of the
"buddy system". Is there any precident for the legal culpability of diving as a buddy if that buddy dies/gets hurt?

On the poll question, I am not experienced enough to try a solo dive, but on all my dives with 'pair-up buddies' done on the boat, it has been like I was solo diving. I don't have a lot of dives, so that is not a good representative sample mind you

 

[drbill]

As I've posted elsewhere, depending on the conditions solo diving may be safer than diving with a buddy. That does bot include my regular buddies, all of whom I feel comfortable and safer with than if I were diving solo. However I've had far more experiences of unsafe actions diving with buddies I've been assigned to than when I'm diving solo... and I do about 80% of my diving solo.

I do not recommend the same to everyone, but in my case I'll take a proven buddy or no buddy at all.

Dr. Bill