Bad attitudes about solo diving are still prevalent

[scubadada]

Operators in SE FL are pretty good about solo diving, either through experience and/or formal training. Regardless, I have been very successful with operators who do not know me by communicating with them ahead of time. They either accept training and equipment or they do not. I have not been surprised or disappointed for some time.

 

[Marie13]

Well...maybe if experienced divers would buddy up with newbies, newbies wouldn't feel the need to just show up to a quarry, hope to find a buddy, and consider going it alone if they can't find one.

Ex. I drove two hours to a quarry yesterday and tried that. I'd been messaging (here and elsewhere) attempting to line up a buddy, with no luck.

I've lost track of how many times an experienced diver has either told me to go buy-a-buddy (take classes to rack up my dive count) or said "oh" when they processed that I just have a OW cert. I get it...only going to 30-50' of depth instead of doing a deeper dive and not going into deco on a single dive is a significant imposition for them.

Lots of people are interested in giving newbies advice, but not many seem interested in diving with them. INB4 "I'm an experienced divers and I dive with newbies all the time."

The owner of my local quarry has asked me to buddy with buddyless divers a number of times. I’m one of the regulars. Most of the time they’ve been more experienced than I am! Several have been DMs. But no solo cert. I’ve also offered to buddy with numerous newer divers I’ve met through my shop. Very few have taken me up on it. I suspect because it’s because they’re primarily vacation divers while I’m the crazy coldwater chick. The low viz, cold (to them) quarry has little attraction for them.

 

[scubadada]

The owner of my local quarry has asked me to buddy with buddyless divers a number of times. I’m one of the regulars. Most of the time they’ve been more experienced than I am! Several have been DMs. But no solo cert. I’ve also offered to buddy with numerous newer divers I’ve met through my shop. Very few have taken me up on it. I suspect because it’s because they’re primarily vacation divers while I’m the crazy coldwater chick. The low viz, cold (to them) quarry has little attraction for them.

Your quarry sounds very attractive, I'll pass, thanks

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

The owner of my local quarry has asked me to buddy with buddyless divers a number of times. I’m one of the regulars. Most of the time they’ve been more experienced than I am! Several have been DMs. But no solo cert. I’ve also offered to buddy with numerous newer divers I’ve met through my shop. Very few have taken me up on it. I suspect because it’s because they’re primarily vacation divers while I’m the crazy coldwater chick. The low viz, cold (to them) quarry has little attraction for them.

I think that's the case for my area, as well. Many of the people that I see posting on the local boards are looking to go somewhere warm. If I wasn't brand new and tweaking to get underwater, I doubt that I would be so anxious to suit up in ~40* weather and go check out a bunch of bluegill, lol.

I think this is one area where going through an independent instructor (not affiliated with a big dive shop) has perhaps not done me a favor. I like my instructor and I learned a lot from him. However, I did not get exposure to other new divers in the class (the instruction was one on one) ...and what would likely have been a good buddy introduction opportunity.

 

[Marie13]

I think that's the case for my area, as well. Many of the people that I see posting on the local boards are looking to go somewhere warm. If I wasn't brand new and tweaking to get underwater, I doubt that I would be so anxious to suit up in ~40* weather and go check out a bunch of bluegill, lol.

I think this is one area where going through an independent instructor (not affiliated with a big dive shop) has perhaps not done me a favor. I like my instructor and I learned a lot from him. However, I did not get exposure to other new divers (the instruction was one on one) in the class...and what would likely have been a good buddy introduction opportunity.

My shop is well known - DRIS. OW/Advanced instructors have introduced me to people. I’ve met others on the boat or in classes. I am well known to be insatiable when it comes to diving. I had the unlimited season pass on DRIS’ boats this summer and I instabuddied with a number of people on the boat. I’d go on the boat early in the season not knowing who I was going to buddy with. Later on, I met another gal in my SM class, who also had the wreck bug AND the unlimited pass. We were then buddies for the rest of the season when we were on the same charters.

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

My shop is well known - DRIS. OW/Advanced instructors have introduced me to people. I’ve met others on the boat or in classes. I am well known to be insatiable when it comes to diving. I had the unlimited season pass on DRIS’ boats this summer and I instabuddied with a number of people on the boat. I’d go on the boat early in the season not knowing who I was going to buddy with. Later on, I met another gal in my SM class, who was also had the wreck bug AND the unlimited pass. We were then buddies for the rest of the season when we were on the same charters.

I've been talking with my OW instructor about knocking out the AOW course with him. I think what I'll do is plan to take another course in the spring with a larger shop and see about possibly meeting up with someone with similar diving interests.

 

[Marie13]

I've been talking with my OW instructor about knocking out the AOW course with him. I think what I'll do is plan to take another course in the spring with a larger shop and see about possibly meeting up with someone with similar diving interests.

Sounds like a very good idea. You can always go to OW instructor for a skills session if you want to work on something specific.

 

[Chilly_Diver]

Well...maybe if experienced divers would buddy up with newbies, newbies wouldn't feel the need to just show up to a quarry, hope to find a buddy, and consider going it alone if they can't find one.

Ex. I drove two hours to a quarry yesterday and tried that. I'd been messaging (here and elsewhere) attempting to line up a buddy, with no luck.

I've lost track of how many times an experienced diver has either told me to go buy-a-buddy (take classes to rack up my dive count) or said "oh" when they processed that I just have a OW cert. I get it...only going to 30-50' of depth instead of doing a deeper dive and not going into deco on a single dive is a significant imposition for them.

Lots of people are interested in giving newbies advice, but not many seem interested in diving with them. INB4 "I'm an experienced divers and I dive with newbies all the time."

I certainly don’t mind diving with “newbies”, given they have the right expectations, though more often than not they are looking for a dive guide rather than a dive partner. I end up feeling like I’m guiding/instructing for free rather than diving with a buddy. Also to your point, I’m most often not looking to do a 30-45 minute dive in the 30’ section of the quarry. It’s not a slight on the person looking for a buddy, though I came prepared with a dive plan. I’m a being rude by not picking up a random dive partner? No, I’m just diving my plan. I suggest to all those wanted to dive to have a plan prior to showing up to dive, rather than winging it once they get to a dive site

 

[Stoo]

We do accept solodivers that have all the equipment needed in redundancy, so if you have a 2 computers, 2 regulator sets, a slate, extra mask, extra signaling devices, and so on....
.

Having logged perhaps 2000 solo dives over the past few decades, I can tell you with some certainty that a slate is as much use to a solo diver as a pee-valve is to a goldfish.

Within my dive community of say my closest 20 dive friends, solo diving is the norm. We will often dive "same lake, same day" style or even together as a number of us are photographers so we use each other for models. Having said that, my buddy/model may be 40' away from me.

To me, the keys to safe and successful solo diving are a healthy and confident mindset, a significant amount of experience (100s of dives perhaps), and of course redundancy in principle bits of gear. Once a diver has satisfied those requirements, I can't actually think of any benefit to having a buddy beyond socializing and chipping in for gas. If I have a second stage drop off the end of my hose, a buddy will never get to me more quickly than I can slap my second second stage in my face and shut down that tank.

The one exception to all of this might well be when a dive accident isn't a dive accident. In other words, some health issue affects the diver, such as a heart attack or aneurysm. In those cases, for sure a buddy could likely assist in getting the "victim" back to the boat where life-saving stuff might happen. But those cases are rare.

 

[Chilly_Diver]

Well...maybe if experienced divers would buddy up with newbies, newbies wouldn't feel the need to just show up to a quarry, hope to find a buddy, and consider going it alone if they can't find one.

Ex. I drove two hours to a quarry yesterday and tried that. I'd been messaging (here and elsewhere) attempting to line up a buddy, with no luck.

I've lost track of how many times an experienced diver has either told me to go buy-a-buddy (take classes to rack up my dive count) or said "oh" when they processed that I just have a OW cert. I get it...only going to 30-50' of depth instead of doing a deeper dive and not going into deco on a single dive is a significant imposition for them.

Lots of people are interested in giving newbies advice, but not many seem interested in diving with them. INB4 "I'm an experienced divers and I dive with newbies all the time."

Also, why are you looking at deco/experienced divers to dive with? Neither one of you will likely be fulfilled by the dive. I recommend finding someone with roughly the same dive plan to dive with.