Is Solo diving a category of Technical diving?

[Nemrod]

John, I sometimes exaggerate just a bit--lol---some off them did grab the trailing line. This was a fancy group of divers. They were a club out of Jacksonville as I remember. The time was circa 94. They had a small inflatable they brought. Like I said, they were working on an Advanced cert and I think some of them were trying for some time of rescue cert or similar. That I am not totally sure about but in any case they had a inflatable. He launched it and recovered his divers no sweat. He was mad because I dived solo, not because his divers floated off. Yeah, I am not so mean as to let those folks float around dog paddling here and there while I enjoyed my dive. If I had felt they could not be recovered I would have aborted and help pull them in. We decided--after everyone calmed down to go inshore to a shallow wreck just inside the inlet--no current. The water was less than 30. Everyone got to dive 'till we got cold and tired and they all got their certs I guess. They played with their rubber boat a bunch, everyone had fun and even the skipper got over it. AND--I had a great solo dive to boot--cannot beat that. N

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Nimrob,

That sounds a lot better than my imagination conjured up. It also sounds like you and I have something in common. My wife calls it a "John Ratliff Factor." My story-telling sometimes exaggerates a bit too, especially when talking about fish sizes in my younger days. Today, I am mindful of this part of me, and take pains to double check my "facts" to negate the "John Ratliff Factor."

SeaRat

 

[VeniVidi]

Then...they want to solo dive.

Just for the sake of interest: is this your experience? I actually have the impression that novice divers are primarily absorbed with themselves, be it with buoyancy or equipment handling of all sorts, which would never bring them to the idea of jumping into the water by themselves. Aside from that, their (mostly PADI) course manual pounded more than once into their head that diving solo is something that is never supposed to be conducted.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Just for the sake of interest: is this your experience? I actually have the impression that novice divers are primarily absorbed with themselves, be it with buoyancy or equipment handling of all sorts, which would never bring them to the idea of jumping into the water by themselves. Aside from that, their (mostly PADI) course manual pounded more than once into their head that diving solo is something that is never supposed to be conducted.

Yes. I think we're even seeing it right here on the board. Divers are poorly taught how to budy dive, have a few discombobulated buddy dives read things like rodales or this forum and start thinking that solo diving is the answer without ever really understand team diving.

If a diver wants to be alone and prepares for it then he should solo dive. If he's had some bad buddies and wants to get away from them, he needs better buddies. I think bad buddies are too often given as the motivation for solo diving. Since a bad buddy dive takes at least two divers just like a good buddy dive, it the complaining diver may be one of the poor buddies.

 

[VeniVidi]

Yes. I think we're even seeing it right here on the board. Divers are poorly taught how to budy dive, have a few discombobulated buddy dives read things like rodales or this forum and start thinking that solo diving is the answer without ever really understand team diving.

If a diver wants to be alone and prepares for it then he should solo dive. If he's had some bad buddies and wants to get away from them, he needs better buddies. I think bad buddies are too often given as the motivation for solo diving. Since a bad buddy dive takes at least two divers just like a good buddy dive, it the complaining diver may be one of the poor buddies.

Thanks Mike

These are good points and you speak about a different level of proficiency. Those people you are referring to have (or believe to have) at least a comfort level that would not intimidate them by going by themselves. Do I understand you right by saying that solodiving is an alternative rather than a solution?