tarponchik
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I'd rather not join in and stay an undercover solo diver.
Did ScubaBoard sweep the Solo forum under the rug again?
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That attitude pretty much defines a solo diver, IMHO.
But you don't have to join, it's been opened up: Open the Solo Forum?
But you don't have to join, it's been opened up: Open the Solo Forum?
tarponchik
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Why you are no daisy at all.
Now that there is a certification it is needed because many charters will insist upon it, most especially if they do not know you. Or just limit your solo to shore diving or your own boat.
In the past I have been allowed to solo based on experience but now this past summer the same ops are requesting my solo cert card. One thing, a cert, has beget another thing, the need to have it.
N
Now that there is a certification it is needed because many charters will insist upon it, most especially if they do not know you. Or just limit your solo to shore diving or your own boat.
In the past I have been allowed to solo based on experience but now this past summer the same ops are requesting my solo cert card. One thing, a cert, has beget another thing, the need to have it.
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No, special flowers want to be treated special, they don't want to prove a level of competence, they just want to say they are competent and have everyone believe it. Kind of like Dr. Deep. I might have questioned him, but others took him at his word. Of course, solo diving isn't on the same scale as 1,000 foot O/C dives.
Certified solo divers, OTOH, have been through some course of instruction, much like cave divers, advanced wreck pen divers, and others. They have demonstrated their competence to someone somewhere who agreed that they had some minimum skill set to solo dive. My wife's cave instructor was very clear that she had the skills to dive solo at the end of her instruction. This was years before any type of solo certification came out.
Look, I believe and agree that solo diving is a mind set as well as a skill set, and to me the weight is more heavily on the mind set side. I know a number of self taught OW divers who still dive, they still don't have a cert card, and I still wouldn't let on my boat. My uncle is one of them. I know a bunch of OW divers who regularly trimix dive, who deep air dive to far more than 200 feet, and "Wash up" with a hang bottle of O2 from their transom, they don't carry it with them. Looking at any number of profiles from the Hell Divers would make most certified divers cringe. And, they have a far higher accident rate than recreational diving as a general rule. They don't go on charters, as they own their own boats, compressors, and blending systems. Their statements are typically something like "why should the rules apply to me? I've been doing this for years." Good on ya. Keep on doing it. Just don't do it someplace where someone with deep pockets (namely my insurance company) will have to face the deceased's heirs and explain why industry accepted standards weren't followed. My insurance agent, the one who insures most of the boats on the East Coast, will not do business with many west coast boats for in-water liability for this exact reason.
But then, we're on the East Coast. We don't have that stubborn independent streak that many on the west coast have.
Sorry, all, for being hooked and drawn back in.
Certified solo divers, OTOH, have been through some course of instruction, much like cave divers, advanced wreck pen divers, and others. They have demonstrated their competence to someone somewhere who agreed that they had some minimum skill set to solo dive. My wife's cave instructor was very clear that she had the skills to dive solo at the end of her instruction. This was years before any type of solo certification came out.
Look, I believe and agree that solo diving is a mind set as well as a skill set, and to me the weight is more heavily on the mind set side. I know a number of self taught OW divers who still dive, they still don't have a cert card, and I still wouldn't let on my boat. My uncle is one of them. I know a bunch of OW divers who regularly trimix dive, who deep air dive to far more than 200 feet, and "Wash up" with a hang bottle of O2 from their transom, they don't carry it with them. Looking at any number of profiles from the Hell Divers would make most certified divers cringe. And, they have a far higher accident rate than recreational diving as a general rule. They don't go on charters, as they own their own boats, compressors, and blending systems. Their statements are typically something like "why should the rules apply to me? I've been doing this for years." Good on ya. Keep on doing it. Just don't do it someplace where someone with deep pockets (namely my insurance company) will have to face the deceased's heirs and explain why industry accepted standards weren't followed. My insurance agent, the one who insures most of the boats on the East Coast, will not do business with many west coast boats for in-water liability for this exact reason.
But then, we're on the East Coast. We don't have that stubborn independent streak that many on the west coast have.
Sorry, all, for being hooked and drawn back in.
tarponchik
Contributor
Well, looks like we are at peace here. I do not do solo dives from charters (because either my wife is my buddy or I dive in a group where there is always another lonely guy or DM himself to be my buddy) and you won't have legal troubles if I have an accident while shore diving on my own.
I am the opposite, more likely to have a buddy shore diving and go solo on a charter. Shorediving I usually do not bring my camera, charter diving my camera is my buddy and three is a crowd.
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And I dive solo no matter who I happen to be with. Sometimes I show a card, sometimes I don't.
I only show 2 cert cards. My Surface Marker Buoy Speciality Diver and my Self Reliant Speciality Diver cards. I sometimes have to show I have over 100 dives and I did not bring my logbook and that I can get my sausage to point up and be fully inflated. The ladies dig that.
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