Great thread!
I would only second that diving, solo or otherwise, is largely about being comfortable in the water. The only way you're going to be comfortable that you can handle the speed bumps that a dive may put in your path is to go thru several problems under water, IMO.
Once you know how you will personally handle stress - by encountering "real" life-shaking experiences - the better you can mentally prepare for your dive.
I tend to do long solo dives - 4 to 7 hours & often a mile or so back in a cave - yet my heart still races and my breathing rate still soars when I hit one of those speed bumps. I've been thru it enough to know that 1.) I'm initially going to be stressed, 2.) that I will eventually settle down and use my brain to think, 3.) that I do have emergency skills & backup equipment that have been proven time & again. and 4.) that the odds are in my favor of getting out alive because I've taken the time to prepare before getting in the water.
The above may sound strange to some, but you have to go into the water knowing that things will go wrong & that you really have to have thought about all of those "what ifs," if you are going to make another dive. All of the courses help, but stress management can't be taught, IMO; It can only be "acquired" by diving - a lot and on a routine basis.
I personally don't believe the "initial" stress created by an underwater problem ever goes away: It's an adrenaline thing.
If you don't enter the water knowing that your "primary" equipment is going to fail (I've even lost a fin 4,000 feet back in cave) & that you are going to be mentally tested, then you might want to reconsider whether or not diving is for you, solo or with a buddy. You only get one chance, so you have to be mentally & equipment ready to take advantage of that one chance. That means looking at your gear and mentally going thru what you will do when each piece of it fails.
Solo diving is serious, because it is.
But, once you are prepared, it's a wonderful experience.
Solo diving is a goal I will work for, but I can't imagine wanting to do Cave Diving, personally. It's not for everyone, and it's just not my sort of thing, if you know what I mean, lol.
Also, When I first start, like others have done before me, it will be in very shallow water, near shore where a CESA can be performed very easily, just in case.
For now though, I think joining my local dive club is the first thing in order to keep up with the sport and ensure I don't go buddy-less with monthly dives.
Given the fact that I want to actively prepare for it, I hope to be ready for it before dive 200, and hopefully, well before never, but you just never know. I'm not a cowboy by any stretch of the imagination. I'm extremely careful in everything I do and if the risk is too high, you generally won't find me doing it, which is why I imagine my first solos just barely beyond the surf in 10-15 feet of water.
I will have to admit that one of my biggest fears that still lingers would probably be a variety of potentially, even though that potential is only slightly, dangerous sea creatures such as "JAWS!" :biggrin:, "SHAMU" and "Godzilla (he came out of the ocean, right?).
For some reason I feel safer in a group, than by myself with my back against everything. I don't put blame on the animals though. I think it's a just a stress related Anxiety of always watching my back from my time in the Marine Corps and serving in Iraq. Not PTSD, but anxiety none the less.
Yet I realize it's an unrealistic fear, largely, I know the stats are beyond in my favor compared to other disasters, etc. And that's the first step, I would think.
Being fairly new to the sport, it's just one of those things that the average diver probably grows out of.
