Solo practice dives

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Rudyh

Registered
Messages
21
Reaction score
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Location
Ridley Park (outside philadelphia)
# of dives
25 - 49
I know solo diving is for only the highest trained and professional divers but my question is. Is it acceptable to practice and hone your diving skills in a swimming pool alone. I have access to a olympic size pool that has a depth of 15 feet. My wife no longer dives so i'm pretty much on my own and would love to do buoyancy control and learn the frog kick. Is it ok to train by yourself, thanks for any input Rudy
 
Ok first his is my own opinion many people have many different answers to this type of question

there is no scuba police period so if you want to dive solo you dive solo it is all about the level of risk that you and your family find acceptable. Remember that people can drown in a couple of inches of water so that if you are worried about being safe in a pool the answer is you have risk. You have an increased risk over swimming in a pool alone and swimming alone in a pool is riskier and swimming with a lifeguard present. It is all about what you as the diver and what your family as a family of the diver find to be an acceptable risk.

For me I dove alone on dive 5 after my open water class. I took it slow and worked on my skills but I have been diving solo when ever I want to dive and do not have a dive buddy available. That is my decision to make. I have added a redundant air source to my solo kit and now dive any dive I am trained to do (130') when I want to. I am careful and thoughtful about every dive I make and I feel that I am safer diving the way I do than I would be if I was diving with a new diver who would not be prepared to assist in a problem.

Again everyone has their own opinion and you are the only one that can determine what is acceptable. f I was really worried about it I would practice while the wife was on the side of the pool.
 
You'll probably have a bunch of people telling you not to do it. But if you have anyone who can swim sitting on the side of the pool, you have help. And although it is possible to die of a gas embolism from ascent from the bottom of the pool, that's about the only bad thing that can happen to you. You aren't going to get entangled, you are highly unlikely to run out of gas (and if you do, you're only 12 feet down, right?), and you can't get lost. You could have a cardiac event in the pool, but you could do that mowing the lawn, too.

I did a LOT of work in my pool by myself when I was starting out. If you have a camera that works underwater, you can put it on something or hang it from something, and video yourself, too.
 
The pro's and con's of solo diving aside, any diving, pool, puddle, ow etc. that you can do will help hone your skills and make you a better diver...Go for it :) !!!!
 
Solo diving is not for only the most highly trained and professional divers. The SDI solo diving certification is a recreational level certification, and it is nowhere remotely near the highest and most professional levels of certification. Many much more highly trained divers choose not to dive solo because they do not think it safe, even with that extra training.

As for swimming pool training by yourself, I have done it many times, and I intend to do it many more times in the future. I don't consider it the same things as open water solo diving at all.

Yes, it is possible something really weird can happen, like having a heart attack with no one there to save you, but those things can happen anywhere. I see people driving to work solo every day, and something weird like that is just as likely and just as deadly in those circumstances.
 
Rudyh:
I'll always have a spotter with me and the pool has at least two lifeguards at all times.
Click to expand...

You are so close you can taste it. Solo diving is realizing that there is NOBODY but you. Keeps you focussed and honest to yourself. -can't offload all the "if this should happen's" and "what if's" onto your dive buddy. If you can't handle all possible issues, don't go there...


Personally, I love it.
 
Solo diving is realizing that there is NOBODY but you. Keeps you focussed and honest to yourself. -can't offload all the "if this should happen's" and "what if's" onto your dive buddy. If you can't handle all possible issues, don't go there...[/QUOTE

Really? In a public pool? I don't think it requires a solo cert, or a solo mindset, or even the capacity to handle all reasonable issues alone, to dive in a pool with two lifeguards and a wife who is a swimmer.

Solo DIVING is a different animal, and anybody who knows me knows I strongly prefer diving with a team, and discourage new divers from exploring solo just to get underwater. But in a monitored pool, this is not really solo diving, because most of the risks of a solo dive are not going to occur in the pool, and if there IS an unforeseen issue, the surface is 15 feet away at MOST, and there are two capable free divers watching the pool, according to the OP. I mean, I'm risk averse; I belong to an entire community of seriously risk averse divers who are often mocked for our conservativism. But even I see little wrong with a certified diver practicing open circuit skills in a monitored swimming pool. (Put the diver on a rebreather, and this changes.)
Click to expand...
 
I don't consider practicing in a pool with other people around solo diving. I have done it many times, mostly in my struggle to learn the back kick, in fact I chose the dive shop that I most often dive out of mostly because they have a pool. Until I find a buddy willing to do skills dives, I will continue to visit that pool alone. I would rather do skills dives in the real environment, but we have what we have.

I subscribe to the philosophy of team diving, and have never done what I would consider a solo dive. Being in a pool with people around is more like making a public display of yourself for the amusment of the passersby, not being truly alone.

The one thing I have found interesting though, is that the pool is fresh water, and where I dive for real is salt water. So the weighting is different. Since weights are by their nature not distributed proportionally around your body to exactly where the bouyancy is, if you are working on bouyancy, you will find that correct weighting in the pool feels a little bit different than correct weighting in the ocean. Something to keep in mind.

Linda
 
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