Diving without a buddy?

[Darnold9999]

Have had the "great buddy" experience on a couple of liveaboards. The buddy that is as comfortable in the water or more so than I am, doesn't want to spend the entire dive swimming from one rock to another and is prepared to be patient while I get "the shot" of whatever we have found. Is prepared to wander away on their own if they are getting bored with what I am doing, but will let me know they are off and will be back shortly. I know they are safe and within sight.

The experience of being able to share a discovery in the moment is nice as well.

These "great buddy" experiences have almost always been with divers with many hundreds of dives.

However - the majority of my experiences diving with instabuddies is exactly the opposite. "Dive slow" means swimming the entire time from rock to rock, coral head to coral head. Taking a picture means snapping off a shot or two while pausing for a second or two. Looking up to see the tips of fins heading off into the blue.

I dive solo now on almost every dive. If someone needs a buddy I will pair up, but I make it clear that I am there to take pictures and I am not prepared to chase them around the dive site. If they want/need a buddy then we are going to dive slowly looking at macro stuff and if they wander off they are on their own. (once in the water I am way less militant about it but it I find it helps if I am annoying at the beginning of a dive rather than at the end )

I find diving solo, on balance, much more relaxing - no responsibility for someone else, and I can do exactly what I want.

The couple of times I have managed to get myself in trouble a buddy made no difference whatsoever to the outcome so I don't get any warm fuzzy's from having someone else nearby.

 

[penneyd]

My buddy and I dive for scallops.....we start out as a pair but always end up drifting apart. Both of us have about 40 years + of diving behind us. We have our simple rules and guidelines we follow and rarely dive outside them.

if you have the training & experience its not a problem........that being said, I'm not going diving to 100 feet solo

safe diving

 

[Superlyte27]

My buddy and I dive for scallops.....we start out as a pair but always end up drifting apart. Both of us have about 40 years + of diving behind us. We have our simple rules and guidelines we follow and rarely dive outside them.

if you have the training & experience its not a problem........that being said, I'm not going diving to 100 feet solo

safe diving

I know all too well, that 20' deep is just as dangerous as 100' deep. It's been my experience that it's at shallow depth that people are most complacent.

The two life threatening circumstances I was in this year were in less than 10' of water. One was my fault, one was no one's fault.

 

[MeanGuy]

"nods nods" my 1st advanced dive was scary, cuz i always used to dive with buddies and i always let them guide me all the way if they were experienced more than me. but after i tried it, i enjoyed it more than group/guided dives. i can stay at a spot for as long as i want. instead of just swimming all around, sometimes , what you can see in 3 square meters can be more than what you see in 100 meters swim , thats my opinion.
but i do dive with buddies on wreck dives im still not experienced enough. but i try not to be a hero when im in a solo dive.

 

[peterbj7]

If I'm in a situation where I have to have an instabuddy because the people running the show insist on it (on a liveaboard by myself for instance) I usually try to make up a threesome with an established buddy pair, then once away from the DM's hearing explain that I'll see them back on the boat. Usually works.

My favourite dives of all time are here in Belize, diving totally by myself (not even supported by a boat) with my CCR. The diving here is wonderful in the 130-170 ft range, and I like to spend hours down there by myself. Well, not actually by myself, because with the solitude and the silence that only comes with CCR diving a lot of sealife comes to me. I think my longest single dive has been 4.5 hours. Obviously I am equipped to deal with most emergencies that may crop up, but to date there's never been one. I pre-arrange for boat pickup at a certain place and time.

 

[pastorjared]

I'm still new to diving, but my two dive buddies live about 30 minutes away, all scheduled dive clubs are intermittent and i live on a lake that I'd like to dive regularly. I'm an extremely cautious person, but for diving in a like that the max depth is 30 feet I don't see the problem in diving solo. I have yet to dive solo, but may go for my first this week.

Any suggestions for my first solo dive? My max depth will be about 20 feet

 

[toliver66]

I prefer my redundant air source to not be a free swimming entity with a mind of its own. So I keep my buddy strapped to the side of my tank.

 

[Juan Alberto Soto]

No Go situation


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[Paulmal]

It is all in how you plan to do a solo dive that makes it safe. I know lots of people that solo in caves because it is hard to find a buddy to go diving at 3:30 in the mourning when you just can't sleep. Take proper steps to be safe and you should have no problems, jump in unprepared and that is another story.

Also let's face it every instructor and DM that dives with new divers is essentially solo diving.

 

[Dive Bug Bit Me]

Took me a while, but I convinced an operator out here to let me solo.

Every second weekend the DM takes a tour group for a swim around one of the local wrecks. They now accept me dropping off on my own with a "see you in 45 mins" to the boat captain. Last dive I managed the entire swim without seeing anyone until I was back on the surface.

Dives are at 100 to 120 ft range. Now I am working on the operator to allow me to sling an O2 bottle.