I'm happy not to bring redundancy solo once I'm confident of getting to the surface in the very unlikely chance of a complete lose of my main gas. In an emergency I think the best place to be is safely on the surface.
Solo dive - true confessions
- Thread starter PhatD1ver
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Boarderguy
Chief Narctopus Wrangler
I always have a pony with me. The very unlikely and unfortunate case of needing more time for an entanglement is the other thing on my mind when I drop. Never hurts to have an extra 5-10 minutes 1 valve turn away rather than getting tunnel vision from O2 deprivation and making a corked ascent.
When I returned to MO and MO/AR diving after living in MI and diving the Great Lakes, I rediscovered the awesomeness of wetsuit diving with a single old-school steel 72. (Thin or medium-thickness wetsuit. I traded a still-new Al 80 for a PST 72 manufactured in 1970.) Excellent combo here for the kind of shallow dive you describe. Adding a SS Freedom Plate (in 2010) made/makes things absolutely perfect.
Welcome back. Good that you're back in the water.
Were you intentionally diving "thirds"? Or was this just how things turned out?
Hmmm. Bellingham WA. Did you mean to write 34 fsw (rather than 34 ffw)?
ETA: I just had my 72 re-hydroed again, a couple of months ago. Plus-hydroed again. You might ask to have yours plus-hydroed next time.
rx7diver
Cthippo
Contributor
Thanks!
I was in Lake Whatcom, we have a small beach right behind our fire station that drops off pretty steeply to a flat silty bottom. There is a surprisingly large number of things to see down there that people have thrown in the lake over the last 150 odd years. I plan to keep working on my skills in the lake because I feel very comfortable in there until I am happy with them before moving to salt water. It's also convenient because I have three lakes, or at least two and a swamp, within a mile of where I live.
I was not intentionally diving thirds, but more a case of planning to be back on the surface at 500 PSI and reaching a point of "Ok, I have done everything I planned to do, I don't need to kill time for a couple more minutes for the sake of a number".
SlugLife
Contributor
The problem isn't what happens the 499 dives where you don't have a problem, or only minor problems, but rather the 1-dive where you do have a serious problem. Having redundant air gives you a significant safety-buffer for a wide array of potential incidents; turning a risky or deadly scenario into a mere mild annoyance.
Being able to emergency-ascend is indeed a form of additional redundancy; and something you probably want to be able to do regardless. But it's nowhere near as good as redundant-air itself. This is especially true if you encounter an entanglement, or don't realize you need to emergency-ascend for some reason until it's too late.
The one time I had a regulator-issue, it took me about 30-seconds to realize what was going on. Only a few small changes to that scenario (depth, lower air, etc), and it easily could have been a serious emergency, and even if I could have emergency-ascended, I probably would have had some kind of injury.
Like Boarded guy said, entanglements are probably the most unpredictible and dangerous, more-so than not realizing you used all your air, or having a regulator-issue.
The way I look at it, I'd prefer the worst thing that happens to me while scuba-diving is a minor annoyance, not a "oh ****, I almost died" scenario.
What are the odds of a total loss of gas (which is very unlikely) and an entanglement at the same time. Zero.
happy-diver
Skindiver Just feelin it
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Anyone interested in talking about diving these days instead of complete BS
If you wish to talk about your BS then start a tread.
Ana
.
I would love to talk about diving. Better yet, I'd love to be diving. But for the 2nd weekend in a row the seas don't let me.
Even worse, the forecast isn't looking any better for this coming Wednesday-Thursday. Husband and I have been waiting for those 2 days since the end of March.
That's the mini-season for lobster here in Florida. I bet Friday will be fine, because that's my luck. Oh well... Then we'll have to go Friday and see the leftover lobster laughing at us.
Meanwhile yesterday i found a coin I did t know we had. Belongs to my husband, his mother got it for him when he got certified, 1972. From an ad in Skin Diver magazine.
Not sure of the material, kind of heavy.
On one side has a dive flag with the words scuba diver and the other side:
"If found unconscious rush to the nearest decompression chamber contact state police or coast guard for assistance"
I thought that was pretty good. I guess back then they didn't rely on a buddy or any redundancy. Just the kindness of a passer by.
Today I'll see what kind of metal cleaners i have around and give that coin a clean face.
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