My 63 Meter Solo Dive - Cebu, Philippines

[Stoo]

When I was much younger and much stupider... or should I say, less well-informed... I used to do the odd dive like this. In 38F water. In a wetsuit. When my regulator froze up at 170' on a single aluminum 72, my 13 cf pony suddenly seemed woefully inadequate. I made it up, but vowed that that was the last time I'd do anything like that.

Almost all of my diving is solo. Almost all of it is in the 110' - 170' range.

All things considered, I've seen dives that were dumber than this one, probably even done a few. Another time though, I think a little redundancy might be a good idea. Mind you, freeze up isn't likely in Manilla I wouldn't think, and regs really don't "fail", so as long as he was keeping an eagle eye on his air supply, it was a pretty manageable situation.

On the other hand, there is that whole narcosis thing. Up my way, lots of folks think that you need to suck mix if you're going to go past 100'. I think that that's being a overly conservative, but that's just me!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I find that narcosis is much less a concern in warm, clear water than in cold, dark water.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[CaveMD]

Deep solo diving really is not that dangerous when done properly with reasonable experience and training but you make it very clear with this story that you have neither and are going the appropriate way to get your self killed very soon.

 

[Rhone Man]

I find that narcosis is much less a concern in warm, clear water than in cold, dark water.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

People say that a lot, so I suppose it is likely true. That being the case, I wouldn't like much to be narc'ed in cold dark water. How those nutters did air dives back on the day on the Doria and U-869 in the North Atlantic is a mystery to me.

 

[DevonDiver]

I find that narcosis is much less a concern in warm, clear water than in cold, dark water.

I think that the issue really stems from the underlying stress in the diver. Water conditions can play a direct role in that stress...as can the exposure protection worn to deal with it. Task loading and complexity from drysuit, thick gloves removing dexterity, a hood increasing sensation of claustrophobia.

Being relaxed and stress-free on a dive can enable a diver to cope well with the issue of narcosis. However, that can change in an instant if a diver is introduced to unexpected stressors during the dive (malfunction etc).

Otherwise, the issue of narcosis in a low-stress diver can bring problems through over-confidence and too little anxiety....diminishing that diver's perception of potential dangers.

Either way... deep solo diving, without the proper equipment, experience and training is a potential time bomb, that can see an otherwise confident diver radpily lose control of their ability to deal with issues and return safely to the surface.

Add deco obligations to that (especially when untrained and unequipped for deco) and you've created an excessively risky dive situation.

 

[Kevrumbo]

The OP (Andygoiii) says he had an "13L" Pony bottle --meaning an AL100 stage tank. Can it be he meant an AL13 or 2L bottle instead? (Scary. . . and glad you made out alright!)

Anyway, my nominal coldwater SAC rate with double 11L Aluminum tanks is 22 litres/min; roughly translated to bar units at 60m, I would be consuming 70bar of gas in 10min. On a single 11L tank, that would be 70bar of gas in 5min! Just based on this basic pre-planning gas metric alone, I wouldn't even consider risking a bounce dive to 63m on a single tank.

Take DevonDiver's offer as mentor/instructor, and let us know how your training goes. . .