Going Solo

[FritzCat66]

Hey fellow solo divers! If you guys don't mind, I'm planning to use this post as a kind of mini-blog about my experiences working towards my solo certification. I really like this forum, the fact that it's somewhat protected from the "Solo diving? Are you nuts?!?!" posters. I feel maybe sharing my experiences - good and bad - might be useful for someone else starting out down this path, plus I hope to get pointers from all the experienced solo divers online.

>*< Fritz

 

[FritzCat66]

So, here's where I'm coming from: I'm 42 years old. I've had my OW cert since 2002 (and actually had several non-logged dives before, going back to the 80's... shhhhhh!), but I've only really had the "dive bug" for about a year and a half now.

Once I started really diving, almost immediately I grabbed a camera and started doing photos as well. So much so that I feel weird in the water without my camera, even if I'm not actively shooting something. I would not call myself a great photographer or anything, in fact my photos are more for me to remember my dives than anything else (I love taking the photos, but for a real photographer, that's only 10% of the work - the rest is touching them up and working them to perfection in Photoshop, but that bores me).

Like many others have pointed out about underwater photography, whether or not you intend to be a solo diver, you often end up being one!

Which is fine with me. I'm a natural introvert for one thing, and something I've always liked about diving is that, even with other divers underwater, I'm free from the constant monkey chatter that is almost always around us all the time, wherever we go. Don't get me wrong, I do like meeting folks, especially other divers whom I can converse with about our diving experiences. I just don't "do" chit-chat, idle talk, sports or celebrity gossip, etc., and I'm not good about pretending to be interested in things that I'm just not.

Also, I'm just wired to live life solo in almost all respects: I am childfree-by-choice. I live solo (I prefer that term to "single" because "single" kind of carries the connotation that you're looking to be "partnered", like you're incomplete somehow). My job is unique and I spend a lot of time alone on that too. When not diving, I often take my camper and camp solo, exploring the Southeast on my own. When I do spend time with others, it's one-on-one with a good friend, maybe two or three, but definitely not large groups - I prefer a couple of friends and relationships of real depth rather than a broad number of people whom I just don't have the time to get to know as well. I write and play music for solo piano (little joke there), and if I weren't diving, my other interest would be hang gliding, another risky but very solo sport, which I may indeed get around to if ever the dive bug flushes from my system.

Overall, I am perfectly happy on my own and I like being and feeling self-contained, reasonably self-reliant, and not beholden to anyone, nor responsible for anyone, neither a follower nor a leader. It's very natural for me. I identify with cats very strongly that way, thus my online name and avatar.

So, before I even heard of the certification, I just gravitated towards diving solo. I would say most of my dives to date have been with buddies, or at least start out that way, given that I do a lot of drift diving in Florida. My "thing" is underwater life - I love the richness of the reefs here in Florida, and I'm hoping to experience them elsewhere as well. As a result, I'm not too interested in the technical side of diving, and am happy remaining a primarily open-water, 130' max., no-overhead, recreational-limit diver.

My goal in pursuing solo diving? Well, first thing is, the solo diving isn't itself a goal for me. Neither is the certification. Neither is the gear. Nope, it's just a means to an end. The goal for me is just getting to experience the wonderful life underwater, to be immersed in it, to feel part of it, to feel in touch with my evolutionary roots as an organism who came from the sea and who is still to this day mostly water. To capture some of this in photos and video, and to experience all this on my own terms, without worrying about a buddy.

Aside from that, I feel I share the same goals as others have said so well on this forum already: independence, self-reliance, and freedom chief among them.

So, that's my introduction here. I intend to post status along the way.

>*< Fritz

 

[FritzCat66]

Right this minute I have less than 60 dives on my log. I'm hoping to have my 100th around the end of the year so I can do the certification no later than early 2009. I'm treating the SDI solo cert and the 100-dive minimum as something I should work for, something I should strive to earn. I'm treating the certification process itself to be just a confirmation and validation of my established practices. I'm not treating the cert as any kind of "justification" for solo diving, just as a responsible step. I realize solo diving can be risky, therefore I also want to treat it as responsibly as I can. Besides, it gives me a target, a tangible goal, something to focus on.

So I'm reading up, learning, building good habits, acquiring decent gear, and practicing skills that responsible solo divers should have.

Practically, here's what I'm doing: I figure the main thing I need to get very used to as a solo diver is a pony rig. Like the spare tire on your car, it's just a basic necessity that you need to have and keep filled with air, even if you never need to use it.

But after reading here on ScubaBoard about the myriad configurations for a pony - slung, tank-mounted, cross-mounted, bagged, upright, inverted, valve-on, valve-off, hose left, hose right, reg bungied, reg necklaced, etc. - I knew that I would first have to try these and figure out what the best, most useful and intuitive configuration would be FOR ME.

To that end, a techie dive buddy of mine was kind enough to lend me the 13cf pony from his rebreather rig (which he doesn't much use nowadays). So I got to try it in all kinds of configurations. What I determined works best for me is a bagged, upright, hose left, valve-on, necklaced-reg configuration.

Once determined, I went off to purchase my own pony rig and have just now taken posession of it. It's a thing of beauty to be sure! A 19cf aluminum tank, with a Zeagle Razor combination valve/first stage for compactness and simplicity, OMS button gauge, and an XS AirWave reg on a short yellow Miflex hose (I needed a reg with a left-hand hose feed due to the way I'm wearing it). The tank is in an XS bottle bag, which velcro-mounts to my cam band, with straps around the primary tank, mostly to keep it from wobbling.

I went with the 19cf for the extra margin it gives me on my normal depths (40'-90'), the fact that it should even be able to get me back from 130' even with a safety stop and breathing rather hard (assume a SAC of 1.0 - I have a plan to test this capability as well), the excellent buoyancy characteristics of the Luxfer 19 (-1.4 pounds full, just barely buoyant empty), and the fact that it shouldn't really be much more trouble carrying a 19cf over a 13cf. Using the borrowed 13cf, I know I can at least ascend from 75' on that with safety stop, breathing normally, since I tested that a couple of times.

So, my next post will be about my first experience diving with my own new pony rig. If possible, I'm hoping to take it out this Sunday.

>*< Fritz