Defined Skills/body of knowledge for Solo

[novadiver]

Novadiver,
thanks for the advice. just a couple comments -

1) do most solo divers carry safety sheers? add whatabout on a buddy dive, won't they be needed then too? Maybe I should get a pair, I hadn't realized that was a danger. Perhaps we should add this to the rules? Sounds like a good one to follow.

2) Are you saying I am destined to make a critical mistake at 25 feet? By critical I assume you mean I will be hurt severely or killed. I don't know, I still feel safe doing it. I'm not saying it is, I'm just be honest, saying that I don't yet feel compelled to take a solo diving class just for shallow solo diving.

3) I guess I don't carry a pony bottle, because at 25 feet, I figure I'll just go up to the surface. I do value my life, but I figure that I have a greater chance of dying driving to the dive site than dying at 25 feet because I don't have a pony bottle (I'm at 20-25 feet most of the time on my solo dives). Also, I don't own one. I will be buying a pony bottle, though, because I think even with a buddy, someone can get separated, and what are going to do if you are separated from your buddy at 50 or 75 or 100 feet, and your regulator fails, and you can't reach them?

Scott

Thanks for keeping an open mind.
To answer your question about safety shears, yes, very few solo divers don't have them. Most solo divers have more than one cutting device

Also you should invest in a storm whistle and safety sausage. If you get a cramp or take a shark hit and can't swim on your own you need to be able to signal for help.

The pony is there in case you back gas is gone do to eguipment failure.

 

[scottfiji]

Thanks for keeping an open mind.
To answer your question about safety shears, yes, very few solo divers don't have them. Most solo divers have more than one cutting device

Also you should invest in a storm whistle and safety sausage. If you get a cramp or take a shark hit and can't swim on your own you need to be able to signal for help.

The pony is there in case you back gas is gone do to eguipment failure.

- Yes, I consider a knife, whistle, and safety sausage part of any dive, not just solo. Those are always with me. I'll have to get some safety shears.

- I know what the pony is for, I was just saying that I still felt relatively safe diving without one because I'm in 25ft of water, and the surface is my backup. However, I've read alot of other posts and I do realize that there are mixed feelings on this subject.

thanks for all the advice, I'm here to learn.

 

[MikeFerrara]

- Yes, I consider a knife, whistle, and safety sausage part of any dive, not just solo. Those are always with me. I'll have to get some safety shears.

- I know what the pony is for, I was just saying that I still felt relatively safe diving without one because I'm in 25ft of water, and the surface is my backup. However, I've read alot of other posts and I do realize that there are mixed feelings on this subject.

thanks for all the advice, I'm here to learn.

The surface is an ok backup only if you can be sure of being able to get to it...and pretty fast too.

 

[Snowbear]

thanks for all the advice, I'm here to learn.

And that's a good thing.

As for being able to help yourself, have you seen this thread?

As I've said before, if you are choosing to solo dive (especially as such a new and inexperienced diver), you need to be as fully aware as possible of the risks and be fully prepared to accept the consequences of those risks. One of the risks is that that something may happen that you cannot get yourself out of. No matter how familiar you are with a site, how shallow you stay (how tall are you? I can drown in 5 1/2' of water), how good the viz is, how experienced or well-equipped or well-trained you think you are, you may not be able to help yourself.

Before anyone jumps me for being an anti-solo-diver in the SD forum - yes, for reasons of my own I have chosen to accept those risks for myself and if I want to dive and can't find a buddy, I dive anyway. I've just found that many divers, especially newer ones, don't know or understand the risks they are facing.

 

[rjchandler]

re no air redundancy on a shallow dive:

will you need to swim under water to get back to your exit?
how good are you with a snorkel - or do you like swimming on your back?

 

[SDAnderson]

scottfiji:

Here's the bottom line: solo diving is substantially more dangerous than diving with a buddy. With 40 dives under your belt, you simply can not have enough experience or knowledge to offset the increase in risk that comes from the absence of a buddy. The little things (like carrying shears as well as a knife during open water dives) are as likely to kill you as the big things and you still have a mountain of little things to learn.

We all have the right to determine our own risk tolerance, but I don't see how you figure you can make a rational decision about where your limits should be when you're still trying to master bouyancy control.

You might not be destined to make a critical mistake in 25 feet of water but many of the things that will kill you can do so just as easily in 10 feet of water as 100. Even though depth increases some risks, the surface is NEVER your backup.

Please find a good buddy (not always an easy task) and put some time into diving before you branch out into solo diving. The things you can learn on the surface by talking and planning with a critical dive partner are often as valuable as the things you learn underwater and having a back up brain along when you're diving is the best surrogate for experience.

 

[eponym]

But seriously, if people think I'm doing something dangerous (more dangerous than the solo diving you do), I'd like to know why, because maybe I need to do things differently, or not at all. So I'm looking for constructive feedback. What does everyone think? thanks up front for being polite

Scott, kudos for being so up front. It's nice to see the whole picture of a diver and his dives laid out that simply and plainly.

I think our pre-diving life experiences mold us from early on, and determine our approach to something like this--how safe we'll stay, how we'll react to stressors. I'm no judge of others' competence, especially not from a distance.

I will offer a personal anecdote. I was solo once over a solid, flat, dirt bottom of forty feet in my local lake. I had enough air and no entrapment or injury. Nevertheless, I had issues related to how well the dive was going versus my plan. I started rushing things, then suddenly I actually felt panic rising. At that point I said "screw it all" to myself and started up, at what felt like a runaway pace. Looking at my dive profile later, I saw it was just over sixty feet per minute, the previous standard. It felt like a rocket, but that's because I'm used to going up at much less than thirty per minute and because I had abandoned responsibility for myself at that point.

At the surface, and later, I had a lot to think about. These days a continuous self-assesment is the topmost of the threads that run in my head while I'm down. I want to know how I'm feeling and whether I need to change what's going on before it escalates.

That's one reason you'll see posts that say, "never solo with a new piece of equipment, not even a new light." This can sound overly cautious, but it's sound advice. The smallest difficulty can tip us over the edge if we've allowed ourselves to get stressed.

Bryan

 

[novadiver]

Scott, kudos for being so up front. It's nice to see the whole picture of a diver and his dives laid out that simply and plainly.

I think our pre-diving life experiences mold us from early on, and determine our approach to something like this--how safe we'll stay, how we'll react to stressors. I'm no judge of others' competence, especially not from a distance.

I will offer a personal anecdote. I was solo once over a solid, flat, dirt bottom of forty feet in my local lake. I had enough air and no entrapment or injury. Nevertheless, I had issues related to how well the dive was going versus my plan. I started rushing things, then suddenly I actually felt panic rising. At that point I said "screw it all" to myself and started up, at what felt like a runaway pace. Looking at my dive profile later, I saw it was just over sixty feet per minute, the previous standard. It felt like a rocket, but that's because I'm used to going up at much less than thirty per minute and because I had abandoned responsibility for myself at that point.

At the surface, and later, I had a lot to think about. These days a continuous self-assesment is the topmost of the threads that run in my head while I'm down. I want to know how I'm feeling and whether I need to change what's going on before it escalates.

That's one reason you'll see posts that say, "never solo with a new piece of equipment, not even a new light." This can sound overly cautious, but it's sound advice. The smallest difficulty can tip us over the edge if we've allowed ourselves to get stressed.

Bryan

Hey brian good post. I was thinking about starting a thread on when a solo diver should CALL the dive. I hope to get some good feedback on the subject.

 

[scottfiji]

snowbear,
yeah, I think you are right. I also think diving even with a buddy is risky, so is driving in LA, and having s*x. we have to know our risks and try to minimize them. (I happen to think diving to 100 feet with a buddy could be more risky than solo at 25, btw)

chandler,
yeah, I would only solo where I could swim back on the surface if I needed to. I'm good with a snorkel and always bring it. I also wear an easily-ditchable weight belt.

bryan,
hey, that sounds like good advice. thanks for sharing the story, I think its pretty theraputic for us to share our diving stories here. strangely, I'm actually pretty calm when soloing, I've been more nervous with other people around, but I think on any dive something can cause us to panic a little. but yeah, why risk bringing something new on a solo dive? probably better to try it out with a buddy.

reefraff,
thanks for worrying about me, but you still haven't told me what is so dangerous about what I do... I still feel like I'm more likely to get killed on the way to the dive site, or get an undeserved hit of the bends on a buddy dive where I go to a deeper depth...
I'm not saying its risk free, and I'm trying to keep an open mind (and be very careful on my dives), but so far I haven't heard anything that tells me I'm taking some huge risk ever time I step into the water, that's all. (Embellisms, spinal DCS, stuck inside a wreck - now that's scary stuff!) (Hitting your head on a rock in heavy surf is also).

Scott

 

[MikeFerrara]

reefraff,
thanks for worrying about me, but you still haven't told me what is so dangerous about what I do...

Maybe that's part of the problem. No one's told you and you haven't had or seen enough diving problems to knwo what could happen or how you'll handle it if it does.

I still feel like I'm more likely to get killed on the way to the dive site,

If you are a poor driver this could very well be true. However, every diver who ever died on a dive lived through all their trips in cars but failed to survive a dive.

or get an undeserved hit of the bends on a buddy dive where I go to a deeper depth...

Once you get a little experience you'll feel more confidant about what kind of dives your body with put up with.

I'm not saying its risk free, and I'm trying to keep an open mind (and be very careful on my dives), but so far I haven't heard anything that tells me I'm taking some huge risk ever time I step into the water, that's all.
Scott

What may make it a huge risk is that as a diver with little training and little experience you are in the highest risk group of divers already. Have you read through a DAN accident report?

To further complicate matters, you're diving completely beyond the scope of any training you've had. Lacking the training and not having a bunch of experience to fall back on, you just don't know what it is that you don't know.

While nothing goes wrong on most dives, from what I've seen divers in general, and especially new divers don't do very well when there is a problem. Personally I attribute this in part to the way training is conducted. In most cases it seems geared towards divers who are going to be vacation divers and not only dive with a buddy but usually a divemaster too.

So what are you're risks? Not that bad. Chances are you could do many dives and never have a problem.

On the other hand, if you do run into a problem, I wouldn't bet my morning coffee money on you.